
With some Notice of the Times 



which they lived. 



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REMINISCENCES 



OF THE 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 



ELAM FENN, and LYDIA, his wife, 



WITH A BRIEF SURVEY OF THE 



TIMES IN WHICH THEY LIVED. 



BY 



LEVERETT STEARNS GRIGGS. 






^r^ 



Press of The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company, Hartford, Conn. 



-5 a 



LC Control Number 




tm P 96 028858 




WHY THIS BOOK. 



Not " of arms and a man " does this book tell, but of a 
man of peace. Said Gen. Sherman, at the annual Alumni 
dinner of Yale College, in 1876: "I love peace and hate 
war as much as did any of these old divines/' pointing to the 
portraits on the walls of Alumni Hall. This book tells of a 
man of a peaceful spirit, and a peaceful life ; and yet of one 
who knew verily what affliction was. Not of a public person ; 
his career lay rather in the obscurity of a rural town and 
village. But the poet has sung, 

" Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear." 

Such a gem was this man — "of purest ray serene." Not 
the caves of ocean alone bear them ; Amherst men remember 
the superb tourmaline which Prof. C. U. Shepard used to 
show, dug by himself with a hoe, from its earth-bed in Maine. 
A gem from a hill of New England, was the subject of our 
story. 

We have thought it unfit that the only biography of him 
should be that of most of us — written on the one stony leaf 
at the grave's head. For loving kindred and acquaintance, 

■? 



and for one, now and then, of the great common family of our 
human relationship, these lines are traced, to save a shadow 
of a sweet-spirited brother — better, father — and of the times 
in which he was among men — body, mind, and heart— all 
now, alas, the man — the men, gone beneath the dust. It 
was Dr. Todd who said that one of the hardest things for 
him to believe, was that he should live after he was dead. 
Yet the glory of his dying hour spoke of aught but 
doubt. 

Into dust 
Sinks the just, 
That he may rise 
Above the skies. 
Oh ! heart that breaks, 
The Master speaks— 
" Because I live, 
Life I will give, 
And from the grave 
My own will save." 
If Love must weep 
Where dear saints sleep, 
Dark Doubt and Fear, 
Weep ye not here. 

Terryville, Conn., Nov. 22, 1884. 




MORNING. 



Town-Hill, so-called, in Plymouth, Conn., is a widely- 
extended, irregular elevation of land, occupying a large area 
in the central portion of the town. It lies a little to the 
south of a direct line between the village of Plymouth Cen- 
ter and that of Terryville in the same town, two miles distant 
to the east. Ascending this hill by a road which crosses the 
highway at a point about a half mile west of Terryville, soon 
after reaching the broad upland at the summit, we come to 
a dear, old, red house, on the left, standing thirty feet or so 
back from the road. Dear is this house because of the 
people it has sheltered — the warm, warm hearts that have 
loved in it, and all the microcosmic variety of human hopes, 
fears, joys, sorrows, that every day, for nearly a hundred and 
fifty years, has here constituted the real life of a New 
England home. Old this house, by positive proof, is, for as 
we write, here lies the deed by which Joab Camp conveys to 
Jason Fenn (both of the town of Watertown and parish of 
Northbury), several "pieces or parcels of land, with the 
dwelling-house and barn standing thereon " — this very house. 
The date of this deed is the " first day of April, in the year 



of our Lord, 1784, and of the Independence of America, the 
eighth." And Mr. Elara Fenn's friends have often heard 
him remark that at the time of purchase, the covering of the 
house was so much impaired, that the new owner deemed it 
best to remove it, and clapboard the building a-fresh. A 
portion of that covering then put on — a hundred years ago — 
still remains in a good state of preservation — white-wood 
clapboards fastened with wrought-iron nails. (The nails 
were made by hand, of iron purchased in Sharon, and brought 
to the vicinity in the form of rods, bent so as to be con- 
veniently carried on horseback.) Red, lovingly, warmly, 
durably red, is this house, according to the ancient custom of 
house-painting. Erect and firm it stands, with two-storied 
front, somewhat modernized in windows and chimney and 
piazza, but in form without and within much the same as of 
yore. The long rear roof sweeps toward the ground. For 
generations the rain has dashed and pattered upon it, while 
the snug inmates, in childhood, have felt only the comfort of 
hearing the rain, secure themselves behind the impervious 
defenses of their social home — in lonely age, have felt more 
perhaps the resemblance of the storm to the dark, tearful, 
adversities of life. With low ceilings, divided mid-way by 
broad, board-cased beams projecting downward, the rooms 
of this old house stoop toward their occupants in cosy 
proximity. They brood one as with cherishing tenderness, 
affecting one, perhaps not as healthfully as the loftier apart- 
ments of the present day, but certainly most comfortably, 



and when judged in the light of the longevity of our hero — 
shall we call him ? — with not unfavorable sanitary influence. 
Dear old house, thou dost speak in low tones to us, some- 
times sad, ever sweet, of babe and man, of boy and girl, the 
blooming youth, the busy farmer, and housewife, singing at 
her work, the numerous, happy family, the merry-making, 
the marriage, the cheery bustle of the household at morn- 
ing and at evening, with the glow of candle, lamp, and fire- 
light, of pure, domestic love, and joy, and peace ; then of sick- 
ness, and of weeping, the farewells for a time and forever, the 
growing subsidence of life's stir, and the growing prevalence 
of evening shade and silence. Oh ! mute, insensate house, 
thou dost seem to us like that sister of our human race, deaf, 
dumb, and blind, yet full of thought and feeling, whose 
words written, we read, as from behind the veil that separates 
and yet unites her with us, she declares herself our sister, 
still. So dear, old house, art thou yet a companion full of 
stores of warm, living knowledge, to him who has the power 
of converse with thee. 

Under date of Aug. 9, 1877, we find the following lines, 
written with a trembling hand, in Mr. Fenn's diary (he was 
then in his eighty-first year) : " As I sat in my room to-day, 
I felt my loneliness, and my thoughts flew back to departed 
years, when I was surrounded with a large family — wife and 
children — all busy with work and conversation, which made 
life so pleasant. Now everything is hushed in silence ; the 
greatest part of them sleep that sleep which knows no 



8 

waking, the rest scattered ; and I am old, tottering around, 
waiting for the summons that calls me hence. And may I 

' sing, in life or death, 
My Lord, thy will be done.' " 

The very trees which stand as sentinels and comrades in 
the yard, in front of the home, seem to hold their stations 
by a peculiar right. The tulip that rears its tall form near 
the left-hand front corner — more than once have we heard 
the aged man describe the circumstances of its being plucked 
up by a member of the family, as he was passing through 
the forest, and brought home, and thrown down on the 
ground, a mere sprout, to be at length planted here by the 
same hand which traced the lines we have just read. The 
maple, also, near the road, which now in summer throws its 
dense shade far and wide, canopying the hammock suspended 
underneath, and a broad expanse of green grass — that too, 
and doubtless many others, was planted by him, of whom, in 
particular, we write. 

Added interest is given to the premises on which this house 
stands by the fact that the first minister of this town, Rev. 
Mr. Todd, pastor of the original parish, organized as the 
Ecclesiastical Society of Northbury, in the town of Waterbury, 
Nov. 20, 1739, had his home upon them. In a lot on the 
slope northeast of the house, is the indentation in the ground, 
which marks the site of his home, now only a depression 
in the hillside. In 1876, the centennial of our country's 
independence, an elm tree was planted by one of the pastors 



9 

of the town, upon that home-site of the first pastor. At the 
present time there remains an apple tree — sole relic of an 
orchard planted in the days of Mr. Todd. A peculiar charm 
invests the Fenn homestead, in the wide outlook and beauti- 
ful panorama which it ever commands. Across the level 
expanse of the lots which lie in front of it, on the other side 
of the street, the far-away highlands of the west are visible. 
Among the last homes of this part of earth, to which the 
setting sun flashes his evening farewell, is the old house on 
the hill. But far more extensive, comprehensive, and diversi- 
fied, is the view to the east. Town-Hill soon declines from 
the rear of the house, sloping steadily, — yet with some 
hesitations of level reaches, — towards the valley where lies 
the village of Terryville — a mingled scene of houses and 
foliage, and factory walls, and chimney-tops ; and central to 
all and prominent above all, the white tower of the church, 
where, for nearly fifty years, the subject of our story wor- 
shiped. This is the foreground. Beyond lies the wide land- 
scape, swelling and sinking, shading from green to blue, 
until the sight, flying on its swift wings, touches the horizon 
soft as the air itself. The line of that horizon is twenty 
miles or so east of the Connecticut river — distant at least 
forty miles from the old house on the hill. In the great 
area between, the signs of man are often seen, the church 
spire, the fragments of a village, the solitary home, the 
rising smoke marking factory or passing railroad train. 
In this house on the hill was born, the man whose memory 



IO 

we cherish, and would prolong with greater distinctness and 
lastingness than the unaided recollection of men might effect. 
The birth day of Elam Fenn was June 26, 1797. He was 
the youngest but one, in a family of nine children. His 
parents were Jason and Martha Potter Fenn. (A genealogi- 
cal record of the family is found in Appendix A, prepared 
with as much completeness as circumstances have admitted.) 
Only on the previous 4th of March had Washington ceased 
to be President of the United States, being succeeded by 
John Adams, the second incumbent of that office, for the 
twenty-first incumbent of which the citizens of the land have 
just given their suffrages. And it is well to remember, for 
its possible restraining, and correcting influence upon us in 
the present, that "at no period of Washington's life was his 
popularity so materially impaired, as in the last years of his 
second administration, and nowhere so much as in (his own 
State) Virginia." This life of our friend stretched out through 
the period of the administrations of nineteen Presidents of the 
Republic. He came of a Christian parentage. The old 
arm-chair which in his age was his favorite seat, located in a 
corner of the sitting-room, and which, in the skillful hands of 
a grandson, had beautifully renewed its youth, was invested 
with sacredness in his eyes. It had been in the family for 
nearly or quite a hundred years. At either side of it he and 
a brother used to stand when they were boys, while the 
father — as priest in his home — ministering at this chair, some- 
what as though it were the family altar — prayed morning and 




The Old Arm Chair. 



Page 10. 



II 

evening — offering the sacrifice of praise to God continually 
— that is, the fruit of the lips, giving thanks to His name. 
Of the nine children, including our subject, who with their 
parents composed the home family of that generation, the six 
younger must have been born in the old house on the hill. 
Of the three older children — all daughters — the second, 
Mary, or Polly, as they commonly said in those days, died 
not long after her marriage to Mr. John Howe, who kept a 
hotel on Long Wharf in New Haven. " My thoughts fly 
back seventy-two years ago to-day " — we read in the diary of 
Mr. Fenn, Sptember 26, 1877. " My father's family was 
broken. Sister Polly was laid in her grave. And as the 
years have rolled on, parents, brothers, sisters, wife, and chil- 
dren, and my early associates have left me, and I am still 
standing on earth almost alone." The wedding scene of the 
marriage of this sister eighty years before was still fresh in 
his memory to the last. A relic of that occasion he cherished 
— a piece of the green silk dress which the bride wore. And 
a memorable event of his childhood was the responsible duty 
given him — a little boy of eight years — when the news of the 
death of this sister in New Haven was received. As the 
writer was riding with him once in the neighborhood of 
" One Pine Hill," he pointed out a house to which he was 
sent on horseback, to inform a sister and her husband living 
there of the sad event. The people along the way, knowing 
of the sickness of the absent sister, came out from one house 
and another to inquire of him what was the intelligence from 



12 

her, one woman standing at the door with her hand at her ear 
to hear more clearly. Can you who read these lines trace 
the course of the ship over the rolling sea ? The flight of 
the bird through the air ? So will the marks of your presence 
and life on the earth be soon obliterated. 

" The long unvarying course, the track 
Oft trod, that never leaves a trace behind." 

Another entry in the diary of Mr. Fenn, of the date of 
March 30, 1876, is as follows : " Fifty-eight years ago to-day 
I followed the remains of my father to the grave. What 
changes in life's history have taken place since then ! " It 
was his duty to communicate the tidings of the father's death 
to the absent ones. A reply received from the oldest brother, 
Gaius Fenn, then living in New York City, is still in posses- 
sion of the family. It is of date " 3d April, 18 19." Written 
in a firm and graceful hand, it is full of filial love and lamen- 
tation. Allusion is made to the dying instructions of the 
departed. " His last words must be remembered." And 
further on the letter proceeds, " One thing I wish, that we 
might all of us so improve this affliction as to be prepared 
for our own departure, — follow him wherein he followed 
Christ, and at last meet with him in the assembly of redeemed 
spirits in glory. Be comforted, my deaf mother, sisters, and 
brothers, that we are not left to mourn without hope. Our 
departed relative, we trust, is now with the multitude that 
have gone before, in the participation and enjoyment of those 
blessings, which are in reserve for those that fear God and 



13 

live before him. May God in His mercy sanctify this 
bereavement to each of us, and prepare us for all his dispensa- 
tions." This letter is specially impressive from the fact, that 
by the death of Mr. Elam Fenn, to whom it was addressed, 
and who was the youngest of the family who lived to manhood, 
the last survivor of the entire family departed this life, and 
so all have gone to meet that husband and father, " with the 
multitude" of others, "in the assembly of redeemed spirits 
in glory." Mr. Gaius Fenn, the writer of the above letter, was 
a Christian layman of some eminence, whose life was passed 
mostly in New Haven and New York. In his young man- 
hood he " was led to reflection on his personal need of a 
Saviour, by being called on in his turn in a prayer meeting to 
read Burder's Village Sermon on the Conversion of St. Paul, 
and by some pertinent remarks ensuing, from a member of 
the church, on the apparent necessity of some such special 
interposition to convert such a man to Christ. He became a 
member of the North Church in New Haven, then under the 
care of his life-long friend, the Rev. Mr. (Samuel) Merwin. 
Upon his removal to New York, he was transferred to the 
Rutgers Street Church (Presbyterian), of which Dr. Alexan- 
der McClelland was pastor, and was by him ordained a ruling 
elder, in which capacity he served most successfully, and 
often and acceptably represented the Presbytery of New 
York in the General Assembly." Afterward " having relin- 
quished his business, he returned to New Haven, and united 
with the Rev. Dr. Cleaveland's Church. * * He was 



14 

endowed with an excellent and well-stored mind, a clear judg- 
ment, and a well-regulated heart. A few occasional pieces 
from his pen have been published anonymously, including 
some very sweet hymns, and versions of psalms, combining 
devotional fervor and fine poetical taste." Retiring to bed 
on the evening of April 7, 1854, "in apparently usual good 
health," he had not yet fallen asleep, when his breathing 
became oppressed, and with an almost instant consciousness 
that his last hour was come, he calmly committed himself to 
God, and in a few minutes fell asleep in Jusus." (From an 
obituary by Rev. Dr. Krebs of New York.) Of the only 
other brother who lived to years of maturity, Jason Fenn, Jr., 
it has been said that much the same eulogistic words might be 
truthfully spoken, as have been quoted above concerning Mr. 
Gaius Fenn. One sister, Lucy, survived to the year 1879. 
Her home in the last years of her life was in Springfield, 
Mass. And there in October, 1877, Mr. Fenn made her a 
visit, thus realizing a hope long cherished. She was at that 
time eighty-seven years of age, and he but seven years 
younger. In an entry in his diary made during this visit he 
mentioned a hindrance to the free and full enjoyment of his 
visit in the fact that he was " dumb." The infirmity referred 
to was the loss of voice, so that he was unable to speak above 
a whisper. For many of the last years of life he was thus 
disabled. " I have whispered so long," he writes upon one 
occasion, " my own voice, should it return, would seem like 
somebody's else. I do not anticipate making much disturbance 
that way." 



15 

In the little cemetery in Terryville, where the first inter- 
ments were made, lie the remains of Hon. John C. Lewis, 
who died in 1849, being at the time Speaker of the House of 
Representatives in the State Legislature. Toward himself 
and wife Mr. Fenn entertained a strong affection, both by 
reason of ties of consanguinity, and also by many acts of 

kindness by them extended to him. Mrs. Lewis was the 

.sifter- 
daughter of Betsey Fenn, s&mt of Mr. Elam Fenn, who spent 

her last days with this daughter. A somewhat amusing 
incident connects itself with the memory of Mr. Lewis. 
Among the sympathizing neighbors who called at the old 
house on the hill at the time of Mr. Fenn's great sickness 
in his early manhood (of which mention will be made here- 
after), was a good woman whose heart was full of tender 
benevolence. She much desired to go into the sick room. 
Mr. Lewis and Deacon Milo Blakesley were watching with 
Mr. Fenn. They thought, as did others, that he could live 
but a few hours, and were reluctant to admit any one. How- 
ever, as the visitor urged her request, assuring them she 
would say nothing, but just take a look at the sick friend, 
she was allowed to enter. Advancing softly to the foot 
of the bed, she gazed a few moments with moistening eyes, 
in what she supposed was the last look, upon her neigh- 
bor and Christian brother. Then opening the work-bag 
which hung upon her arm, she took from it a sprig of fennel, 
laid it on the bed, and withdrew. The inadequacy of fennel 
to the sick man's condition so moved the watchers to merri- 



i6 

ment, that, even then and there, they could not refrain from 
it, though they knew that the head of fennel was given " in 
the name of a disciple." 

It was, as it were, the old world into which this boy was 
born. 

A man slightly intoxicated said once to the writer : " I 
orter been born fifty years earlier or fifty years later." 
Fifty years earlier would have taken him back to the period 
of which Talleyrand said : " He who had not lived before 
1789, did not know the sweetness of living." Talleyrand 
wrote of France. A sober American of intelligence, born 
when our subject was, could not have wished himself born 
earlier. He might be eager to live yet longer, to see the 
results of the great transitions of his own time. Thus wrote 
Lord Byron in 1808 : 

" Oh nature's noblest gift, my gray goose-quill, 
Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will, 
Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen, 
That mighty instrument of little men." 

And Young had written — 

" Oh for a quill plucked from an angel's wing." 

But the fast nineteenth century soon discarded quill, 
wafer-box, sand-box. They went with the old letter (f), used 
in books before 1800, in all places except the final. And 
many other things of former use has the nineteenth century 
put away, — things of the birth-time of this dear boy of silken 
hairs (here on the table is a lock of it, soft and silken still, 



17 

not from the head of the boy, but of the old man of eighty- 
one years, brown, just a little whitened, like the ground in 
November, with a trace of snow on it here and there.) Think 
of the tinder-box, as the sole practical method of kindling a 
fire, — sparks being struck off by the percussion of flint and 
steel, and made to fall among tinder, and remember that the 
first friction-matches, adapted to common use, were made in 
England in 1827. 

The nineteenth century, though striving after a general 
prohibitory law against intoxicating drink, may have to leave 
the attainment thereunto to the twentieth century ; but at 
least it has banished strong drink from the New England 
home. In those early days great orchards were kept for the 
production of cider. They, and the black mills that made 
their fruit into cider, have, for the most part, gone to decay. 
People in those days did not think they had provided for the 
winter, unless they had from fifteen to twenty barrels of cider 
in the cellar, capped off with a barrel, or keg, of cider brandy. 
Some New England rum also they needed, for their own 
occasional use, and Santa Cruz for the minister and other 
company. Said Rev. Dr. Noah Porter, in his half-century 
discourse, delivered in Farmington, Conn., Nov. 12, 1856, 
" The occasion for it [the temperance reformation] was more 
urgent than those who have lately come upon the stage can 
conceive. So lately as 1837, ... it was found on inquiry 
. . . that of the hundred and twenty families which had lived 
in or near the center of the town (of Farmington) for twenty 
3 



i8 

years previous, more than half had lost a member, or more 
than one, by death in habits of intemperance, or had one or 
more still living with them in such habits." " In that house," 
said Mr. Fenn, pointing out a house still standing, " I have 
watched, at two different times, with men sick with delirium 
tremens. One died at the time, the other afterwards from 
the same cause." A prohibitory law against cold water, 
however, the nineteenth century has expunged, viz. : that 
which withheld the cooling draught from the patient burning 
with fever. With this have gone also phlebotomy and calo- 
mel. 

" I cannot realize this world is the same it was in my 
boyhood," wrote our friend in his age (April 6, 1877). 
No ! Then the Bible, the hymn-book, the catechism, and 
almanac, and a few such books as Baxter and Bunyan, made 
up the home library. Very fond of reading was our friend. 
Shall we, who knew and loved him, ever forget his familiar 
appearance, as, donning his spectacles, he turned the late 
newspaper, or book recently read, to find some passage that 
had particularly interested him. In Curtis' grand work, 
"The Life of Daniel Webster," it is said that the great 
expounder of the Constitution, when a boy, set the house 
a-fire by a spark of his candle, getting up one night, after a 
dispute with his brother Ezekiel about a couplet of poetry, at 
the head of the April page of the almanac. Mr. Fenn never 
did just that. But another fact, exhibiting the early fond- 
ness of the statesman for sacred poetry, was true, in part, of 



19 

him. In the book just mentioned, it is said that Mr. Web- 
ster stated that he "could repeat the psalms and hymns 
of Watts at ten or twelve years of age, and that there 
never was, in truth, a time in his subsequent life, when he 
could not repeat them " (page 1 3). To the writer Mr. Fenn re- 
marked once, in his age, that he had, upon a certain occasion, 
been trying himself, to ascertain how many sacred hymns he 
could repeat in whole, or in considerable part, and he found 
the number to be more than one hundred. And it was his 
practice at times, in the wakeful hours of the night, to recite, 
in his solitude, these hymns, in the order they assumed, by 
repeating first one beginning with the letter A, next one 
beginning with the letter B, and so on through the alphabet. 
Now and then, in some back town of New England, the 
passer-by sees, in the distance, a monumental pile near the 
roadside. Such an one stands on a high elevation in the 
town of Burlington. As he comes nearer, its true character 
appears. It is a massive stone chimney. In its faces at the 
base are the broad fire-places. The house has fallen in 
ruins, or perhaps has been taken away, but the back-bone 
stands erect — the massive chimney. Those chimneys were 
not made for stoves. Mrs. Minerva Hart, widow of the Rev. 
Luther Hart of Plymouth, who survived to the year 1882, 
dying at the age of ninety-two (his cousin, whose boyhood, 
in its environment, we are endeavoring to picture), informed 
the writer that her husband bought the first stove used in a 
dwelling-house in Plymouth, about the year 18 14 or '15, not 



20 

for purposes of cooking, but to aid the open fire in heating 
the kitchen. It was a " Philadelphia ten-plate " stove. The 
cooking was done at the open fire, in the great oven, and in 
a Dutch oven. The water for washing was heated in a 
large brass kettle. On the crane hung a pot in which to 
boil the food. No individual plates were used at breakfast 
and supper. The food was cut in pieces, and each helped 
himself from the common dish. A common mug of cider 
passed around. Pewter plates were used for dinner. Mrs. 
Hart had the extraordinary furnishing of two carpets at 
her marriage, — carpets being then almost unknown. There 
was not a particle of paint, nor of paper, on the interior of 
the house which became the home of herself and husband, 
when it came under their control. 

Into the home of our boy, a stove was introduced, 
of the sort above described. Its heat was felt to be 
oppressive, so much so that the mother fainted. When 
the pewter plates were first displaced by crockery, the 
father objected that they would dull the knives. But the 
pewter went, to be melted down, and transformed into other 
things of use, or to lie neglected in nooks of darkness, until 
after the lapse of the larger part of a century, it should 
be brought out, like the veterans of patriotic wars, to be 
exalted to strange honor. Mr. Fenn remembered well the 
first pans for bread brought home by his father, which arti- 
cle previously had been baked on the floor of the great 



21 

oven, — tossed in, and falling with a sound which still 
lingered in his memory. The family made their own cloth 
— most of it — linen for summer, which they could bleach 
" white as the driven snow," woolen for winter, dyed black or 
brown — black with maple-bark, witch-hazel, and a little 
copperas ; and the residue of the dye they boiled down for 
ink. Their starch they made, and the article which answered 
for saleratus, and their glue. They did not go to the tailor, 
but the tailor or tailoress came to them, and remained for days 
or weeks, making up the cloth into garments. In like man- 
ner the shoemaker came, and the leather which had been 
bought, or tanned "on shares," was manufactured into cover- 
ings for the feet. Not every family could afford a clock, at 
the price of a pair of oxen. As substitutes, there were the 
hour-glass, which the house-wife turned, to know how long 
the bread should remain in the oven, and the noon mark with- 
in the house, from which to learn the moment of mid-day 
Such were the general customs of the people. 

Very different is the world of to-day, in the use it makes 
of art, from that world of our subject's boyhood. Forms of 
grace, and colors of beauty give embellishment now, as they 
did not then, to the products of the mechanic and manufac- 
turer, so that the artisan becomes, as to the results of his 
labor, an artist. Architecture and landscape-gardening, fre- 
quently, are made to serve the purpose of throwing the charm 
of their delightful creations over and around the home. 
Those still villages and hamlets, where, not the living, but 



22 

dead respose, were, in the old times, left to the rudeness of 
uncultivated nature, unmolested, except as the turf was 
turned, to be folded down again upon another sleeper in his 
earthy bed. And upon the sandstone, or headstone of other 
variety, which marked the grave and commemorated the dead, 
was the best which mourning love could command, and faith 
suggest, the coarse image, but a caricature in our view, of an 
angel's face and wings, or a willow pendent above an urn. 
Love, and faith, and grief, were the same then that they are 
now. Then, no less than now, did the heart almost break, 
with its straining grief. On the margin of the now sunken 
grave, with its bowing, mossgrown, illegible, headstone, the 
mourner stood, trembling, sighing, weeping, and looked with 
anguish upon the disappearance of the object of unutterable 
love, and turned away with some comfort in the thought that 
the time of waiting on these shores of earth would not be 
long. But not then, as now, could affection find solace in 
beautifying the *' sleeping-place " of the dead by the service 
of art, to express the purity, sweetness, and perennial fresh- 
ness, of the memory of the departed. 

As gradually the streams carry the soil from the hills to 
the valleys, so population and business tend in the same 
direction. In the valleys flows the liquid power, which is one 
of man's great servants. There the lines of transportation 
lie. The ascent of hills is toilful. Town Hill was once a 
center of industry. Now along its streets are the homes, at 
pretty wide remove from each other, of the families, who, for 



23 

the most part, own and till its farms. In the old days it called 
people thither by the shops located here and there, a carpen- 
ter's shop, chair-shop, nail-shop, tannery, a factory of hatchel 
teeth, etc. Once upon it the place was marked, which should 
be the site of a new meeting-house for the town. In the 
progress of time, many buildings have disappeared, not to be 
replaced. It is not strange then, that Mr. Fenn learned with 
pain, but a few days before his death, of the pulling down of 
an old house in his vicinity, — a service not often called for, 
that a man's neighbors should come together, in a friendly 
"bee " — in the lack of a convenient cyclone — and before night- 
fall completely demolish his house, from roof-tree to founda- 
tion-wall. In Mr. Fenn's mind that house held a place of 
honor. And as Mr. Rarey, the horse-trainer, dying, left a 
bequest to secure kind care for old " Cruiser," for what he 
had been in his associations with him, so Mr. Fenn enter- 
tained an affectionate regard for the antiquated, time-riddled 
building ; to him it was hallowed with its ancient glory, 
when, in the then smartness of Town Hill, companion to the 
other bright, happy homes, it was elegantly furnished and 
finished, for the coming to it of the newly-married. 

The great outside world has wrought its effects upon Town 
Hill and its inhabitants ; and that outside world has indeed 
undergone stupendous changes, since the year 1797. It is 
since that time that mankind have learned how to communi- 
cate and to travel with speed, and to transport the articles of 
commerce with ease. 



2 4 

The magnetic telegraph was first brought into practical 
use, between Baltimore and Washington, May 27, 1844, when 
Mr. Fenn had passed considerably beyond the midway mark 
of his life. We laugh at toll-gates as relics — now hardly 
ever seen — of a by-gone, benighted age. But it was about 
18 12, that the turnpike was buik through Plymouth by a 
joint-stock company, with its toll-gates for revenue. Mr. 
Fenn saw the beginning of the new and great improvement, 
and its final conversion into a public highway, under 
the control of the towns traversed by it. The winding 
track of the old road, of previous use, is now easily 
traced in some localities, crossing the road on which 
the Fenn homestead stands a few rods south of its in- 
tersection with the main road — the former turnpike. The 
oldest canals in the United States are those of South 
Hadley and Montague, Mass., only two or three miles 
long, on the Connecticut River, both undertaken by a 
company chartered in 1792. The great Erie Canal, cost- 
ing seven million six hundred and two thousand dol- 
lars, was built in the years from 18 17 to 1825, in the 
young manhood of Mr. Fenn. At about the same time 
with the completion of the Erie Canal, the first railroad 
in the world, for the transportation of passengers, was opened 
Sept. 27, 1825, in England, — the Stockton & Darlington 
Railroad. The first locomotive, for the transportation of 
passengers on this side the Atlantic, was built in Baltimore 
by Peter Cooper, the noble philanthropist, in 1830, and run 



25 

by him from Baltimore to Ellicott's Mills. The writer has 
heard a gentleman tell of going west from Baltimore by the 
great national road, about that time. He was carried on a 
railway from Baltimore to Frederick, but the cars were 
drawn by horses. Steam navigation began in 1807, with the 
construction and successful operation of Robert Fulton's 
boat, the " Clermont," making the trip to Albany in thirty- 
six hours, at the rate of five miles an hour. 

Looking particularly at our own country, in the advance- 
ment which it has made in these nearly ninety years, we 
mark, first, its vast territorial enlargement. Exclusive of 
Alaska, the present area of the United States is almost four 
times as great as it was in 1797. Then it was eight 
hundred and twenty-eight thousand square miles. The 
Louisiana purchase from France in 1803, considerably more 
than doubled it. Subsequent additions from Spain and 
Mexico have given it a present expansion, of a little more 
than three million square miles. 

The government of this country was in its beginnings 
when Mr. Fenn was born. The Federal Constitution went 
into effect March 4, 1789, whereby the thirteen separate 
colonies became the United States of America. It was in 
1793 that the corner-stone of the national capitol was laid 
by Washington himself, the site of the city having been 
selected by him two years before. In his oration at the 
laying of the corner-stone of the extension of the capitol, 
July 4, 185 1, Daniel Webster described the "Father of his 



26 

Country," on that primary occasion : " He heads a short pro- 
cession over these then naked fields ; he crosses yonder 
stream on a fallen tree ; he ascends to the top of this 
eminence, whose original oaks of the forest stand as thick 
around him, as if the spot had been devoted to Druidical 
worship, and here he performs the appointed duty of the 
day," (Works, vol. II, page 618.) Visit now the city of 
Washington, and mark the change realized in the lifetime of 
our friend. To-day, for beauty, and objects and scenes of 
secular interest, it is hardly surpassed, if equaled, on the 
globe. Its broad, smooth, and elegant avenues, its extensive 
parks and multitudinous minor reservations, green with care- 
fully-kept grass and brilliant with flowers, its statues and 
fountains, its magnificent public buildings, its monument to 
the incomparable Washington — highest structure of man on 
the globe, — its suburban Soldiers' Homes, one on the north, 
where the living veterans of the regular army are cared for, 
which was founded by Gen. Scott, and is adorned, on a com- 
manding eminence, by an imposing statue of him ; another 
to the west, across the Potomac, on the heights of Arlington, 
tree-shaded, grassy-sloped, where repose fifteen thousand of 
the patriot dead who fell in the war of the Rebellion ; — con- 
trast all this, and much more, with the wilderness which met 
the eye of the beholder there, at the birth-time of our subject. 
Surely there has been amazing development since that day. 
And this is but a small exponent of the national expansion 
and transformation, which have taken place. In 1800 the 



27 

national government removed to the city of Washington. It 
was but three years before the birth of Mr. Fenn, that the 
United States Government first coined money. In those 
days the Government was yet, as remarked by the great 
orator on the occasion above referred to, in "the crisis of 
experiment." The population of the country in 1790 was 
about three million nine hundred thousand ; and the Federal 
revenue was four million seven hundred thousand dollars. 
In 1800 the population had risen to about five million three 
hundred thousand. The population of the six cities of the 
country in 1800 amounted to but two hundred and ten 
thousand. 

Nine years before the birth of Mr. Fenn, in 1788, the 
first step towards the settlement of the vast Northwest 
Territory, including Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, etc., 
was made. In that year people to the number of twenty 
thousand, many of them from New England, passed down 
the Ohio River to settle on its banks, the Indian titles to the 
country having been lately extinguished by treaty, and the 
ordinance for the government of the territory having been 
adopted the previous year, 1787. In 18 10, when Mr. Fenn 
was a boy of thirteen years of age, Illinois had a population 
of twelve thousand; in 1880 it had a population of three 
million seventy-eight thousand. A minister, Rev. Cyrus W. 
Allen, informed the writer that about the year 1830 he went 
west in the employ of the American Tract Society of Bos- 
ton, and spent five years traversing Illinois and Missouri. 



28 

Chicago was then so unimportant, that he did not think it 
worth while to go there. St. Louis had then four or five 
thousand inhabitants, and when he visited it on his evan- 
gelizing mission, a man there said to him, " You have 
brought the Sabbath across the Mississippi River." 

An important fact in the mutual relations of people at 
the present day, is the facility with which they can com- 
municate with each other, through the medium of the post. 
Every town and village, almost every hamlet, has its post- 
office. For one cent, one can send a hundred words — if 
not written too coarsely — from Maine to Oregon. The 
message will be carried swiftly and surely. When Mr. 
Fenn was a boy, any message by post, under forty miles, 
cost, for the transmission of it, eight cents, and so on, upon 
a rising scale, until for a distance exceeding five hundred 
miles the charge was twenty-five cents . This was for one 
sheet of paper. In his earlier years, Mr. Fenn used to 
go to Farmington for the mail ; afterward to Bristol. 
Whoever went obtained the mail for the vicinity, and the 
letters were inserted in a tape-holder over the fire-place 
in the bar-room of the Plymouth tavern, to await the call 
of the persons to whom they were directed. 

When we turn our attention to human activity in the 
department of philanthropic and religious enterprise, it is 
doubtless correct to say, from what we there discover, that 
never has there been an equal period of time since the 
planting of Christianity in the world, when so much has 



*9 

been done, in the way of combined, organized effort, to 
ameliorate the condition of the unfortunate, to lift up the de- 
graded, and to propagate the knowledge of saving truth, 
as in the years since the birth of our friend. Indeed these 
years constitute a bright era of unparalleled progress 
of the world, as in temporal prosperity, so also in 
spiritual. John Wesley had died in 1791. Then the 
united societies which began with him — now known in 
this country as the Methodist denomination of Christians, 
numbered only one hundred and thirty-four thousand mem- 
bers. The Baptist missionary, Carey, went to India in 
1793. Foreign missions then had a new birth. The 
American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions 
sprang into being in 18 10 — the birth of the same move- 
ment on this continent. "This Society was organized 
in this town, and at my house," said Rev. Dr. Porter 
of Farmington, in his Half-Century discourse already 
alluded to. The Religious Tract Society of London was 
organized in 1799. The first undenominational tract soci- 
ety in this country arose in 1803, "The Massachusetts 
Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge." The 
British and Foreign Bible Society dates from the year 
1804; the American Bible Society from 1816. It is 
several years since the statement was published, that " ten- 
fold more Bibles have been circulated within the last 
seventy-five years, than within the history of the whole 
world before." 



3o 

In the diary of Mr. Fenn, under date of July 29, 
1877, is this entry: "How much greater advantages 
the young have, than I had when I was young. Then no 
Bible-classes nor Sunday-school." It was in 1782 that 
Robert Raikes had founded what may be called the insti- 
tution of the Sunday-school, in Gloucester, England. 
"When he died, in 181 1, there were no less than three 
hundred thousand children in Sunday-schools in Great 
Britain alone." The first Sunday-school in the city of 
Philadelphia, and we know of none earlier in this 
country, was opened in March, 1791. Not till May, 
1824, was the American Sunday-school Union organized. 
And when this Society applied to the Legislature of Penn- 
sylvania for a charter, the application was met by a remon- 
strance, which seems to have proceeded from persons 
connected with one religious sect, on the ground that it 
was the determination of those who managed the society 
" to subject the consciences and persons of the free citizens 
of these United States to the tyranny of an ecclesiastical 
domination." Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher, in a sermon 
preached by him at the installation of Rev. John Keys 
in the town of Wolcott, in 1 8 14, said: "It is almost unspeak- 
ably important that a system of religious instruction, 
adapted to the age and altered feelings of young people, 
be provided, to succeed the shorter catechism." This 
shows that in this region the old method of the " catechism " 
had not then given way to the new method of the Sunday- 



3i 

school. And it is said by Rev. Samuel Orcutt, in his 
history of Wolcott, that this sermon resulted in the com- 
mencement of Sunday-schools in that town. 

The year 1844, signalized as the initial year of the 
telegraph, is marked also as the date of the origin of 
modern Young Men's Christian Associations, which had 
their rise in a meeting of clerks in a London mercantile 
house, through the instrumentality of one of the clerks, 
George Williams by name. 

When we consider the character of him, whom this 
book is designed especially to commemorate, we cannot 
fail to place a high value on the influences under which 
this character was formed. And while we could not 
consent to close up our Sunday-schools, and go back to 
the old-time use of the catechism, in place of these, 
and the means of spiritual instruction employed in them, 
yet we must not make the foolish mistake of casting 
contempt on the methods of those earlier times, when, 
as reported, on apparently good authority, in the dis- 
course of Rev. Dr. E. W. Hooker, at the centennial 
anniversary of the consociated churches in Litchfield 
County, celebrated at Litchfield, July 7 and 8, 1852, "The 
catechism was always attended to, at the close of the 
half-day school on Saturday; and if school was not to 
keep on Saturday, the catechism was on Friday." The 
children in Christian families were prepared for this weekly 
recitation, by instruction in the catechism, given to them 
at home on the previous Sabbath afternoon. 



32 

These facts, by refreshing his memory, may aid the reader 
in forming some conception — imperfect and inadequate indeed 
— of the mighty changes in the secular and religious world 
which were enacted under the observation of the boy and 
man, Elam Fenn, looking abroad from his well-nigh life-long 
station on Town Hill. He linked to the present the long 
past. 

Some things of those earlier times may well be remem- 
bered, with regret at the loss of them. 

Of Rufus Choate, the brilliant advocate of his day, it is 
said in a published Life of him, that he "retained an instinct- 
ive regard for the old ways and practices of his father's house. 
Though extremely indulgent, he preferred to have his chil- 
dren at home and quiet on a Saturday evening, and engaged 
in thoughtfulness and serious employments." Was not that 
practice, which our grandsires observed, of " keeping Satur- 
day night," and indulging in mild relaxation on Sunday even- 
ing, far preferable to the present prosecution, with intensity 
increasing as the week's-end approaches, of business and 
pleasure, to so late an hour on Saturday night, as to lay, in ad- 
vance, a heavy and depressing mortgage on the Sabbath ? In 
the old house on the hill, the Sabbath was a guest, to be provi- 
ded for with forethought and care. Before the sun went down 
on Saturday night, the week's work must be done, and every- 
thing settled to Sabbath quiet and peace. The next morning 
the family were ready for a deliberate journey to the house 
of God — those who rode being mounted on horseback — the 



33 

man before, the woman on a pillion behind. Seated in the 
pews of the meeting-house, according to the order assigned 
to the attendant families, when the room was thus " dignified " 
once a year (this was true in the boyhood of our subject), they 
were prepared for the advent of the minister, who came up 
the aisle bowing to the people on each side, who had risen as 
he entered. Passing up the stairs to his exalted station in 
the pulpit, the minister bowed to the occupants of the 
galleries — those in front of him, and on each side. 

Mr. Fenn delighted to describe those far-off scenes. He 
remembered well Rev. Samuel Waterman, pastor prior 
to 1 8 10, and sketched him, as his boyish eyes had seen 
him on the streets of Plymouth, riding swiftly his fleet 
sorrel mare, wearing his cocked hat, pipe in mouth, and 
his silk gown fluttering behind. In the Connecticut Evan- 
gelical Magazine, the publication of which was com- 
menced in 1800, there is an account, from the pen of Mr. 
Waterman, of a revival in the town of Plymouth, in the year 
1799. The closing half of the eighteenth century had been 
a time of spiritual coldness throughout the land. " Religion 
was kept in the background." Certain disorders, which fol- 
lowed upon the revivals in which President Edwards and 
Whitefield had been prominent, had operated to bring all 
revivals into disrepute. The old French war, and the struggle 
of the Revolution, absorbed the attention of the people for 
many years. Subsequently, the organization of the National 
Government was a subject of universal concern. Men's 
5 



34 

minds were pre-occupied. (Discourse of Rev. Dr. Eldridge 
at the Centennial Anniversary at Litchfield, July 7 and 
8, 1852.) But in 1792 a new era of religious awak- 
ening opened ; and among the instruments honored of 
God, in blessed revival work, was Pastor Waterman. In the 
account above mentioned, he speaks of the appointment by 
himself of an evening lecture, in February, 1799, " which, it 
is believed, was the first^religious meeting, which had ever 
been publicly notified, or observed in the town." 

A further illustration of the difference of the ideas 
and practices, in the use of social means of grace, prev- 
alent in those times, from those which rule at the pres- 
ent, is given in the discourse by Rev. Samuel Merwin 
(under whose ministry Mr. Gaius Fenn made profession 
of religion), preached in the North Church, New Haven, 
February 25, 1855, "on the completion of fifty years' 
service in the ministry of the Gospel." He was or- 
dained and installed pastor of the church in the United 
Society of New Haven — afterwards the North Church — 
February 13, 1805. Early in his ministry, one "indication 
of promise " was, that " a few female members of the church 
were in the habit, the evening after the monthly lecture pre- 
paratory to the sacramental supper, of meeting for edification, 
by reading Scripture and singing hymns, with prayers also, 
whenever there was any brother present, to lead them in their 
devotions. So far as can be remembered or ascertained, there 
was no other gathering of the kind in the city at that day." 



35 

It is interesting to observe how, with other changes, the 
status of the minister has changed, since the days of Mr. 
Fenn's boyhood. With the general division of labor, and the 
narrowing of the scope of particular industries, the work of 
the minister has undergone a modification, as has also his 
office, in the eyes of the people. Then he was, to his parish, 
its almost sole instructor in religion and morals. And like a 
teacher of students in theology, he discussed this and that 
doctrine in series of discourses. Before the writer lies a 
pile of manuscript sermons, written with exquisite neatness, 
numbered in the top left-hand corner of each first page, — 
the first one, "No. 696," the last one, "No. 715," — 
twenty sermons — all but two of them of exactly sixteen 
pages, and these two of exactly eighteen pages each. Each 
one of them is four inches wide, and six and a half inches 
long. On the right-hand upper corner, is the date of 
preaching. The first sermon was preached, April 14, 1801 ; 
the last, July 21, of the same year. The entire series is 
a development of one verse of Scripture, viz. : 2 John, 9. 
The last two discourses are an "improvement" of the former 
ones. These sermons were preached by the pastor of a 
church, or of a town, we might say, in Massachusetts. 
How would the congregations of to-day relish a series 
of didactic sermons, on one verse of Scripture, covering 
the Sabbath mornings of more than three months? But 
it was no question of relish then. The people were to 
be thoroughly taught in divine truth. We cannot doubt, 



36 

however, that there may have been something a little 
humdrum in such preaching, even then. A venerable 
minister of Connecticut, yet living, Rev T. L. Shipman, 
at the meeting of the General Association (Congregational) 
of the State in 1877, entered his vigorous protest against 
the notion, that the ministry of the present day is inferior 
in power for good, to that of the olden times. " My mem- 
ory," he said, "goes back seventy years. May my tongue 
cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I speak one word of inten- 
tional disrespect toward my old minister ; but I will say — for 
the truth requires it — that the preaching of the present day 
is much better calculated to secure the attention, and awaken 
the interest, of the hearer, and so do him good. Then the 
minister preached morning and afternoon, and the old church 
was a regular dormitory, the people nodding assent, respon- 
sive to each other, over the house. I recollect, when a small 
boy, asking my father, while the minister was preaching, 
whether he had not almost got to " once more," according to 
the stereotyped form of drawing to an end. My aunt looked 
at me in such a manner, as most effectually to reprove and 
silence me. There is far less of mannerism now, in the mak- 
ing of sermons, than then." The pastor of Mr. Fenn, from 
1 8 10 to 1834, was Rev. Luther Hart. It was under his min- 
istry, that Mr. Fenn confessed Christ, and became a member 
of the church in Plymouth, in 181 5. Mr. Fenn remembered 
well the ball, by which the ordination of Mr. Hart was cele- 
brated by the people of the town, and described the appear- 



37 

ance, on that occasion, of her — how she looked as she came 
into the room — who subsequently became Mrs. Hart. Quite 
a belle she then was. Away from home, at school in New 
Haven, she returned, to be present at the interesting event, of 
the settlement of a new pastor. To the writer, Mrs. Hart has 
expressed her very strong questioning — if not denial — of the 
correctness of the description, in the autobiography of Dr. 
Beecher, of the disgracefully free use of strong drink upon 
that occasion, of the ordination of Mr. Hart. Mr. Hart him- 
self was a man of superior ability, improved by education, 
and of deep piety. His essay, in the form of a " letter to a 
friend," published in 1818, with the title " Plain Reasons for 
Relying on Presbyterian Ordination," gives proof of his logi- 
cal powers, and his scholarship. The Quarterly Christian 
Spectator, into which the Christian Spectator was changed in 
1829, was the organ of theologians, who were favorable in 
general, to the views of Rev. Dr. Taylor, of New Haven. 
Mr. Hart was reckoned of that school. And in the September 
number, 1834, issued after his death, these words are found, 
having reference to him : " There is scarcely any one, on 
whom we had more depended, to enrich our future numbers." 
Said one, of him, " I always found it impossible to be long 
with him, without feeling myself to be in the presence 
of a great and good man ; and yet, with his friends, as 
is well known, he often manifested the playfulness and sim- 
plicity of a child." There lies before the writer a little brown 
book, on the fly-leaf of which, with some youthful flourish of 



38 

the capital letters, is the inscription : " Elam Fenn's Book, 
August 20, 18 1 5." It is the Life of that sweet saint, Harriet 
Newell. She had died at the Isle of France, in November, 
1812, the first offering from this land of a completed life 
to the cause of foreign missions. And when this " Life " 
appeared, Mr. Hart occupied the time of four evening meet- 
ings, in the school-house (still standing) near the Fenn home, 
in reading this volume. Much did Mr. Fenn say, and ever 
with evidence of affectionate veneration, of Mr. Hart ; — how, 
upon one occasion, having called the members of the church 
together, and summoned them to new consecration, he ex- 
claimed " I want you all to run up with me now to the gate 
of heaven," that is, in prayer, for the reviving of religion 
in the community. His was a ministry of revivals ; and it 
was in connection with such a season of special labor, that 
he became the victim of fatal sickness. 

There were many noble ministers in the vicinity of Ply- 
mouth, to whom it was Mr. Fenn's privilege to listen in his 
early years. Mr. Mills of Torringford, father of the noted 
missionary, Mr. Samuel J. Mills, Jr., Mr. Porter (afterward 
Dr. Porter) of Farmington, Mr. Hallock of Canton, Dr. 
Beecher of Litchfield. Of the latter, he had vivid memories. 
Dr. Beecher began his ministry in Litchfield, the same year 
that Mr. Hart was ordained in Plymouth. When he first 
appeared on exchange in the church at Plymouth, as he 
ascended the pulpit, one woman in the congregation, judging 
according to the appearance, is said to have remarked to 



39 

another, sotto voce, " no great things to-day ! " What she 
said later, if anything, we know not. It may serve as an 
illustration of the power which Dr. Beecher sometimes 
wielded in preaching, to mention an incident, related to 
the writer by Rev. Dr. Henry Little of Indiana. He was 
much associated with Dr. Beecher in work for the Divine 
Master, in the years from 1832 onward, after Dr. Beecher 
became President of Lane Theological Seminary at Cincin- 
nati. Both were present, on a certain occasion, at a Pres- 
byterian camp-meeting in a locality near the Ohio river. 
One day late in the afternoon, Dr. Beecher said : " Bro. Little, 
you must preach to-night." Mr. Little had not expected 
to do so, but walking out, away from the company, his 
mind was soon directed to a subject, and a train of thought 
thereon, and returning, he gave Dr. Beecher an affirmative 
reply to his request. Accordingly, in the evening, Mr. Little 

W**sr 

preached./ As soon as he had finished, Dr. Beecher addressed 
the audience with marvelous power. The text was, " The 
Harvest is past, the Summer is ended, and my soul is not 
sav ed.' j A mighty effect was produced. Scores of persons 
were brought to the Saviour that night. As a result of that 
camp-meeting, a church was organized, and a meeting-house 
was built on the very spot of the camp-meeting. And years 
afterward when Dr. Little visited the church, one of the mem- 
bers of it conducted him out to a certain tree, and said : " I 
stood by this tree, that night, and when Dr. Beecher was 
describing the danger of the sinner, I seized this tree, and 
held on, afraid of falling, then, into perdition." 



40 

Mrs. Hart used to tell an amusing incident, illustrative of 
Dr. Beecher's liability to unpunctuality. Her husband and 
herself were sitting quietly at their table one day, when Dr. 
Beecher came unexpectedly ; entering with his customary 
vigor, he exclaimed, " Well, I am in time once," referring to a 
ministers' meeting, he had come to attend. " Yes," said 
Mr. Hart, rising to welcome him, " and just one week ahead 
of time." 

In a fragment of a diary kept by Mr. Fenn in 183 1, we 
read in an entry, made April 27th, of that year: " Attended 
meeting, heard Mr. Camp, of Northfield." This was an esti- 
mable minister, Rev. Joseph E. Camp, who preached for many 
years — his time of settlement was forty-two years — in one of 
the highest churches of the land, conspicuous as a moral 
light-house far and near, in the parish of Northfield, in 
the town of Litchfield. It is of this minister the story is 
told, that being on an exchange in the parish of Wolcott — also 
an elevated region, and somewhat rocky — he gave out the 
hymn beginning, 

" Lord what a barren land is this, 
That yields us no supply," 

when the chorister, naming the tune, as was the custom, for 
the information of the choir, called out rather loudly 
" Northfield." 

In Walter Scott's story of Kenilworth, Lambourne is made 
to say, " When I was a youth, I had some few whimsies of 
conscience, but I rubbed them partly out of my recollection 



41 

on the rough grindstone of the wars, and what remained 
I washed out in the broad waves of the Atlantic." 

Our subject, also, when a youth, felt the remonstrances 
of conscience; but he did not finally rub nor wash them 
out. And one reason was the wise care extended to him 
by faithful, pious parents. As the writer stood with him, 
by the grave of his mother, in the old cemetery at 
Plymouth Center, May 15, 1876, he gave the following 
bit of his history : While he was yet a youth he formed an 
intimacy with a young man, who lived in the portion of 
the town near to the parish of Northfield, who seems to 
have been another such affectionate spirit, as was Mr. 
Fenn. They loved each other, and so much, that at one 
time (if memory does not mislead, it was as they sat by 
the fire-place in the Sabbath-day house), the other said, 
" Let us make a covenant, as David and Jonathan did." 
These youthful friends — about sixteen years of age — 
agreed to meet on a Thanksgiving evening, at a hotel in 
Plymouth Hollow, to visit together. As the evening came 
on, our subject prepared to go. His mother asked, 
" Where are you going, Elam ? " He told her. She objected. 

He explained to her the circumstances. But notwith- 
standing all that he said, she could not give her consent 
to the carrying out of the plan. However, as night 
came on, he slipped out of the house, threw the saddle on 
a horse, and was off; met his friend, had a good visit with 
him, doing nothing immoral or improper, in itself. And yet, 



4 2 

conscience was not quiet. He returned home. The next 
morning, at breakfast, his mother said, " Where did you go 
last night, Elam ? " " To the tavern in Plymouth Hollow, to 
meet my friend." She was a wise and good mother. She 
said nothing, but rose from the table, went to the hearth, 
drew out a black coal from the ashes, and with it made 
a mark on the beam overhead — one black mark — and threw 
the coal back into the ashes. Nothing was said, but there 
was the black mark ; and there it stood. Every time he came 
into the room, he saw it. It had a voice, which pierced 
his soul with bitter, humbling reproach. After about 
eight days, the mark disappeared. Then he knew he was 
forgiven. Afterward he learned that his mother had been 
informed, erroneously, in his opinion, that the house to 
which he and his friend resorted was disreputable. That 
was the only instance he remembered, of disobeying that 
good mother. "And now," he said, "I would gladly lie 
down upon her grave, and ask her forgiveness, if that 
would do any good." 

In the determination of personal rectitude, he came 
into collision with the customs of society; and we 
can see that had he finally yielded, in those early 
days, to what, he was convinced, was not right for him, 
instead of bringing forth fruit to God's praise in old age, 
and being spiritually fat and flourishing, he would have 
been like the unproductive heath, planted in the desert. 
To some extent, then, as now, there were scruples in the 



43 

Christian breast, concerning the amusement of dancing. 
A ball was to occur, in those days of his young manhood. 
If a certain young friend — who afterwards became his 
wife — should attend it, he wished to do the same. The 
voice within spoke out imperatively — the voice of duty — 
God's voice in the soul — saying: "Thou shalt not." Alone 
in his room, he wept. But he could not, at least he would 
not, say, " No, I will not go." He went. The custom 
was to gather about three o'clock in the afternoon, and 
disperse about midnight. He came away at 10 o'clock, 
and as he withdrew from the place, resolved that 
he would never attend another gathering of the kind; 
and he kept his vow, and that was his last participation 
in that form of social amusement. 

In the older, original cemetery of Terryville — already 
alluded to — lie buried the mortal remains of two men, who 
bore the name of Eli Terry — father and son. About 
the year 1823, the younger man commenced a business of 
manufacturing, in the locality where now is Terryville. 
From him, as its founder, the village derived its name. He 
was then a young man. In his boyhood days, he was a 
schoolmate with Elam Fenn, being very nearly of the same 
age with him. And in their boyish conferences, young 
Terry made known to his friend, Fenn, that his father, Eli 
Terry, St., was at work at home, in a room from which 
others were excluded, endeavoring to invent a clock. The 
result of those efforts, was a clock that could stand on a 



44 

shelf, rather than on the floor. Thus, in the immediate 
vicinity of our subject, when he was a boy, in his secluded 
home in a country town, lay the fountain-head of the great 
American industry of clock-making. By the invention 
referred to, effected in 1814, the clock ceased to be the 
stately, ponderous, costly, and rare article, it had formerly 
been, and gradually, but rapidly, came to be a universal pos- 
session, in the homes of the land. (A full account of the 
relation of Mr. Eli Terry, Sr., to the art of clock-making in 
this country, is given in Johnson's Encyclopedia.) 

We sometimes see a calendar, in which the days of special 
significance in the year are marked by peculiar coloring, as 
Jan. 1st, Feb. 22d, July 4th, etc. Frequently, in the diary of 
Mr. Fenn, the passing day is noticed, as the anniversary 
of some great event of his personal, or domestic, history. 
There is such an entry under date, Nov. 5, 1876: " I 
have attended church this morning, and once more sat down 
at the table of the Lord, to commemorate the dying love of 
Jesus. I was forcibly reminded of a similar gathering in Ply- 
mouth Center, sixty-one years ago to-day, when I stood up 
with others, and took the vows of the Lord upon me — pro- 
fessedly gave up myself to the Lord, believing my vows were 
recorded in heaven. I now ask myself, where are those 
that witnessed that transaction ? Passed over Jordan's 
cold stream. I, then the youngest of that large church, 
remain. Were I to visit that church to-day, I should find 
but one there, that was there then. When I sat down 



45 

to the table of the Lord to-day, were the roll called, I 
should have been the oldest to respond." It was, then, 
at the age of eighteen years, that our subject made pro- 
fession of his faith in Christ, by becoming a member of 
a Christian church — the youngest member of that church. 
That the reception of young persons to membership was 
not as common then, as now, appears from the following 
statement in a letter, written by Rev. T. L. Shipman 
(whose words have been quoted already), referring to 
ancient times of his recollection. "When Harriet W. 
Lathrop, just in her teens, joined the church at Norwich 
Town, it was a matter of observation and conversation, 
an unheard of event." How striking and beautiful the 
comparison and contrast, suggested by the fragment from 
the diary of Mr. Fenn, given above ! Once the youngest 
in a large church, espousing the cause while yet in his 
youth, and, more than half a century later, still at his 
post — not in the same church exactly, for the church in 
Terryville, of which Mr. Fenn was a member the latter 
half of his life, was a branch from the church in Plymouth — 
yet in this, his later ecclesiastical home, the oldest one 
present at the Lord's Supper, and one of the oldest in 
the church. His connection with the church, her ministers, 
her membership, her ordinances, was close and vital, in 
the earlier, as well as the later years. The Holy Scrip- 
tures began then to dwell in him richly. He became 
exceedingly well-versed in them, so that the halting memory 



4 6 

of one, who might attempt unsuccessfully in his presence 
to quote from the sacred volume, he generally could 
prompt. From those early years, his aims were heavenly. 
He learned then to trust in God, and to hope in Him; 
and when, later, adversity beat heavily upon him, he was 
not swept away, but still, through the darkness and storm, 
shone the serene ray, of his gentle patience, and steadfast 
faith. 

" O how often," he said, looking back on life from near 
its close, here below, "we drank the bitter cup, over and 
over again, but our kind Father gave us strength to do it." 



MID-DAY. 



On the 13th of February, 18 16, Elam Fenn and Lydia 
Atwater were married. She was the daughter of Timothy 
Atwater. It was a happy alliance. Her home was in a large 
house three-quarters of a mile to the South, still standing, a 
good mate, with its generous proportions and wide outlook, 
to the Fenn homestead. This was a youthful marriage 
indeed. Certainly, in this instance, the modern idea did not 
rule, that a man must first make ample provision to support 
a wife, before taking one, as though she were to be carried 
through life ; as when, on the cars, a passenger without a 
seat, looking sharply at one by the side of a young lady, and 
being about to take it, was told by her, that the seat was 
engaged by a gentleman. " And where is his baggage ? " 
" I am his baggage," replied the young lady. Lydia married 
Elam, not to be his burden, but his helpmate. It was never 
the good fortune of the writer to know Mrs. Fenn. But his 
lack of personal knowledge, and consequent inability to speak 
from acquaintance of her character and life, while a matter of 
regret to himself, is abundantly supplied to this volume, by a 



4 8 

tribute from one well qualified by familiarity and affectionate 
regard, to portray her truly and worthily. Thus writes her 
grandson, Colonel Augustus H. Fenn of Winsted : 

" To those who knew them best, it is not easy to 
think of grandfather and grandmother apart. They were 
not made to be apart, but together. They were not twain, 
but one flesh. They came together by natural selection. 
God joined them, and even in thought we cannot put them 
asunder. Each alone would have been imperfect and incom- 
plete. Together they were perfect and complete. If he, in 
his feebleness of health, was less than the oak, by so much 
was she more than the vine. If he, through the ministry of 
suffering, expanded upward in leaf and flower, she, through 
her toil, drove deep the sustaining roots into the mother earth. 
If he aided her in making the family life beautiful, she helped 
him make it possible. She came of Pilgrim stock. She was 
a daughter of the Puritans, and she kept their creed. It was 
hers by inheritance ; it coursed in her veins ; it dwelt in her 
blood. Integrity was as natural as life. She was first pure. 
She loved the truth. She hated a lie. She remembered the 
Sabbath day, and kept it holy. She was temperate, abstemi- 
ous, unselfish. She thought first of her family, then of her 
friends and neighbors, and last, if ever, of herself. To her 
every moment of time, every atom of resource, was a trust to 
be accounted for ; and carefully the account was kept ; faith- 
fully the trust performed. To her, waste was sin, and with 
that rare economy of perfect saving and perfect use, the oil 



49 

by miracle restored in the widow's cruse, could scarce outlast 
her basket and her store. Though children sometimes 
seemed more freely sent than bread, the children were accepted 
as blessings, and the bread was found. 

"And what a perfect trust was hers. Though like Martha 
cumbered with much serving, like Mary she daily sat at the 
Master's feet. Though every morning she took up the bur- 
dens of the day, and bore them to its close, every evening she 
came, weary and heavy laden, and found the promised rest. 
As one by one came trials, sickness, death, how firm she 
stood, how calm ! She knew in whom she trusted, and she 
trusted to the end. And so, with every emergency of life 
serenely met, with every duty well performed, in the evening 
of her existence there came a quiet afternoon, when, with 
prophetic words, she placed her undone knitting in those 
weak hands, which she had strengthened, and taking that 
strong hand on which she leaned in hers, she went to rest. 
And when at midnight, they whom she had borne looked on 
her, as she lay, her fingers, that no more should toil or tire, 
laid peacefully upon her peaceful breast, she was not dead, 
but slept." 

Substantially the same testimony is borne by the eldest son, 
who writes of " the almost miraculous preservation in health 
of our dear mother — her tender care, and almost unceasing 
toil, with quite a family of little ones, in moderate circum- 
stances, with consequent privations." As we attempt to 
delineate Mr. Fenn, following the course of his experience, 

7 



50 

it is with the thought also of that devoted companion, who, 
in the picture of the old home, is seen sitting near him, and 
who, for fifty-seven years, in loving faithfulness, shared with 
him the joys and sorrows of life.* 

Much of the time a rose-bush is but a bramble — a shrub — 
with little to distinguish it above its fellows ; but seen when 
it is in bloom, what peculiar beauty adorns it then, in the 
house-yard, by the road side ! Yet ever it has had the rose in 
it — has been a rose-bush. So there are people, lost among 
the mass of mankind, till the exigency of trial comes. Sick- 
ness, or some of the many forms of earthly trouble, assails 
the person, the family, the neighborhood, and the undistin- 
guished one blossoms out, in beauty of resignation, courage, 
resolution, labor, sympathy, counsel, help. The qualities 
which have endeared Elam Fenn, to those who knew him inti- 
mately, are such as have special exercise in adversity. While 
yet in his earlier manhood, approaching the midway point of 
life, through over-exertion upon a certain occasion, his health 
was irreparably broken. He was wont to say, that since that 
time, he had never seen a well day. Around him was a 
family of young children, dependent on his care and support, 
when prostrating sickness laid its paralyzing and distressing 
hand upon him. His case baffled the skill of the best physi- 
cians. To the pain of his disease was added the pain, almost 
intolerable at times, of the severe medical treatment to which 

* The picture referred to is the older view, taken some years ago, which, in a 
portion of the copies of this work, is replaced by a view taken very recently. 



5* 

he was subjected. " I felt many times that I would be glad to 
crawl away into a fence corner, and die." For two or three 
years his sufferings were great. As he looked at his dismal 
earthly prospects, and the wants of his dear family, he was an 
illustration of the sentiment of Schiller's " Wallenstein," 

" A bitter and perplexed ' What shall I do ? ' 
Is worse to man than worst necessity." 

Before him sickness, large expenses, no revenue ; in the 
end, perhaps, death for himself, and destitution for his 
family. But he looked not only before, he looked also 
above. " If any man will do His will," said Jesus, " he shall 
know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether 
I speak of myself." In other words, if you take God 
at His word, obey and trust Him, you shall find His 
declarations true. More than forty years subsequent to 
this time, Mr. Fenn wrote — it was the demonstration 
of his own experience — " I believe, if I come to Christ 
in simple faith, as a little child comes to his earthly father, 
and ask good things, I shall have them granted some way 
— perhaps not in the way I expected ; for God knows best 
how and when to answer prayer." One instance in par- 
ticular abides in the memory of the children, of prayer to the 
Heavenly Watcher for relief, when " the vision seemed to 
change," and the assured suppliant said, " Help will come." 
It did come, very soon, in the reception of a considerable 
sum of money from that noble brother Gaius, of whom some 
sketch has already been given. Helpers appeared in other 



52 

kind brothers and sisters, both of the name of Fenn and 
Atwater, and in various persons outside the immediate 
relationship. 

As once the writer was riding with Mr. Fenn, by the place 
now owned and occupied by Mr. Thomas Keefe, he said, " In 
that place I passed five years, the happiest of my married life. 
That was before sickness and death came into our family." 

Here is the fragment of a diary of the year 183 1, of the 
months of March and April. The paper is scant, and " in 
the sere and yellow leaf." The entries are brief — brief like 
the compressions of the telegraph. The first entry we insert 
will interest old residents of Plymouth and Terryville : — 

" March 9th. I went over to Mr. Thomas' factory " (origin- 
ator of the world-famous Seth Thomas clocks). " In the 
p. m. I went ... to Terry's factory. At night I watched 
with Elizabeth. 

" 1 2th. . . . Antoinette broke out with the canker-rash. 

" 13th. Staid from meeting on account of Antoinette's 
illness. 

" 14th. Staid in the house with Antoinette. Very sick. 

" 15th. The child no better. 

" 1 6th. The little sufferer departed. 

" 17th. We attended the funeral of our dear child. 

" April 23d. We went to meeting. Had dear little Antoin- 
ette's death mentioned. So fades the lovely flower." And 
what a fit custom was that, which lingered so long in the 
churches, that our memory recalls it, when the minister, 



53 

before prayer, upon occasion, read such a request as this : 
" Mr. and Mrs. Elam Fenn, having been bereaved of a dear 
child, ask the prayers of the church in their behalf, that this 
affliction may be sanctified to their present and everlasting 
good." We spoke of the conciseness of the items in the 
diary. A sigh, a groan, is soon uttered. These pen-marks 
of fifty years ago seem not to indicate a deep emotion. But 
to him who can read between the lines, they are surcharged 
with parental agony of grief. In the intimacy of Christian 
friendship, this afflicted father once unfolded, in part, to the 
writer, the detailed story of that early bereavement. The 
deceased was a beautiful child of two and a half years. After 
the day's work was done, and the father came in, and sat 
down, he was always "interviewed" by the little prattler, 
climbing up into his lap, and blessing him with the demon- 
strations of her sweet affection. And when, forever, the dar- 
ling child was withdrawn, the heart rose up at times in mas- 
terful, vain, longings for the solace of her presence and love. 
One night, giving rein to his feelings, the father went out 
into the darkness, and walking rapidly down the road, and on 
and on, a mile and more, passed through the village street, by 
store and tavern, by the church, spurred by irrepressible 
affection, to the old burying-ground, church-yard still, and 
picking his way among the graves, came to the little mound 
which marked the sleeping-place of his child ; and again was 
heard that cry, which " was heard in Ramah, lamentation and 
bitter weeping," when " Rachel, weeping for her children, 



54 

refused to be comforted for her children, because they were 
not." Ah, it has ever been a pitiful sound ; and was it not 
indeed that night, in the hush of Plymouth church-yard, when 
that father-heart must vent the longing love, it could not hold 
in silence, — " Oh, my darling, I cannot give you up. Come 
back ! Come back ! " Even the Divine Father exclaimed over 
his wayward children, " How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ? " 
In the soul of Mr. Fenn, the love which God implanted was 
tender and strong. It was not in rebellion against his 
Heavenly Father, that this earthly father gave voice to his 
great affection and grief, on that woful night, at the grave of 
his child. There was a bond which held him united to his 
God. Afflictions may speed one on his way toward heaven, 
or carry him off into sin and darkness, accordingly as he 
holds fast to God or not; even as, in some parts of our 
country, ferry-boats are propelled across the streams by the 
force of the current, being held by a rope or cable, fastened 
to some point higher up the stream. The force which would 
carry them directly down and away, is made, by means of 
another resisting power, to carry them on, and across the 
river, to the desired destination. " We shall not have one 
pain, nor disappointment, nor trial, more than our Heavenly 
Father sees best we should have." These words are but one 
form, among very many, in which our friend was accustomed 
to express his faith in the Heavenly Father. " My Heavenly 
Father " was a phrase often on his lips. Let an entry in his 
diary late in life, March 16, 1876, come in here, in juxtaposi- 
tion with the narration of the fact of affliction, just given : 



55 

" Forty-four years ago to-day we experienced our first great 
sorrow. Our family circle was broken. Lydia Antoinette, 
our little darling, was taken from us. With bleeding hearts 
we laid her beautiful casket away. Forty-five years have 
come and gone. Oh, how often death has knocked at our 
door since, and borne off a loved one, one after another, until 
my number of ten children is reduced to four. The compan- 
ion of my youth has paid the debt of nature, too. I can but 
feel sadness come over me to-day ; but I strive to look up to 
my Heavenly Father, and leave my burdened soul with him, 
and rest in the hope, that through Christ, in his own good 
time, I shall be re-united with them in heaven, whom I so 
tenderly loved on earth, all redeemed by the blood of Christ, 
and all join together in a song of praise and thanksgiving to 
God, while eternity rolls on forever and forever." 

One of the six children who preceded him to the world 
beyond, was his son, Albert Potter, born February 4, 1826. 
He died at the age of nineteen years. When this son was 
about ten years old, it became necessary that he should under- 
go a formidable surgical operation. As the result of a sore 
upon one of his limbs, the local physician decided that the 
bone must be removed. A surgeon from abroad, Dr. Hooker 
of New Haven, was obtained. That was before the discovery 
and application of the means of inducing anaesthesia, for the 
honor of which, three eminent members of the medical pro- 
fession have contended, as seven cities disputed the honor 
of having given Homer to mankind. We may well pause at 



56 

the statue of Dr. Wells in Bushnell Park, and give thanks to 
God, that He permitted him, or any one, to confer such a 
boon upon the suffering world, as to wrap the body in peace- 
ful insensibility, when otherwise it would, of necessity, under- 
go indescribable torture. In anticipation of the dreaded ope- 
ration, Mr. Fenn had said to himself, " How can I witness it? 
I cannot, I cannot." And he had planned in his own mind, 
to go out, after all was ready, and retire to the lower part of 
the meadow in the rear of the house, within call, but far 
enough removed, to be beyond the hearing of the cries of his 
suffering child. He went in, and talked with Albert, with 
enforced equanimity, and sat down in the room with his 
back toward the physicians, as they laid out their instru- 
ments, and made their preparations ; when the boy, lying 
on the bed, said, "Pa." "What is it, Albert?" " I want 
you to be in the room, when the operation is performed." 
In describing the event, Mr. Fenn said, " I felt as 
though I should sink " — for he was but a feeble invalid him- 
self. But he replied, " Oh yes, certainly." In a few minutes 
Albert's trembling heart reached out to his father again, 
" Pa, I want you to come and lie down by my side." " I 
looked up to God, and went." It was, of course, a fearful 
ordeal for both son and father, and constituted one of the 
great trials which God permitted to come upon his servant. 
The scene illustrates the domestic sympathy and help, that 
went forth from, and were expected of, him. And the fiery 
trial aided no doubt, under God, in refining away the dross, and 



57 

imparting its purity, and brightness, to the finally sanctified 
spirit. As the son Albert looked to his father, and not in 
vain, in the bitter hour, so did that father look up to God. 
When, in his hearing, the story was told, of the man, and his 
little daughter who wakened in the night, and was afraid, and 
said tremblingly, from the crib at the bedside, " Papa, take 
hold of my hand;" and the father, just then in perplexity and 
distress of mind, was thus led to say, " Father, take hold of 
my hand ; " "I have thought of that a hundred times," said 
Mr. Fenn, " and said, Father, take hold of my hand." 

Mention has been made already of the fact, that Albert 
died at the age of nineteen years. Five years subsequent to 
his death, in 1850, a beloved daughter, Antoinette, the 
second child of that name, passed away, at sixteen years of 
age. Till lately, there stood a little red school-house by the 
road-side, in what is now district No. 4, of the town of Ply- 
mouth, where she taught school for a term, but a short time 
before her death. Both of these children, going to the grave 
in youth's prime, went in the bright hope of the Christian. 
Another daughter, Harriet, the wife of Dr. Salisbury, 
departed this life in the same year, 1850; a son, Lucius 
Augustus, in 1859; an ^ another son, Gaius, in 1872. 

Writing of the birth-day of a daughter, Mr. Fenn said : 
" We rejoiced over her advent, and gave her to God, and she 
still lives, with three others of our dear number, while six of 
our branches have been cut off, and the mother of my chil- 
dren has gone to eternity. God has been good to spare me 
8 



58 

four of my children. What a comfort they are to me in my 
old age. They all, with their companions, profess to be the 
followers of Christ." This word of his is here introduced, to 
intimate how effective for good, upon the children in a family, 
by God's blessing, is the Christian life of the parents. And 
so in those mid-day years, when our friend was compelled to 
restore to Him who had bestowed them, some of the choicest 
treasures of his heart and his home, — not only the infantile 
pet, but those who had come, or were coming to be his com- 
panions and supports, — his heart was comforted by the fond 
hope of that world, where his children wouLd be as aforetime. 
" Thirty-one years ago this morning," he writes in his diary, 
May io, 1876, "Albert died. How vividly it is presented 
to my mind to-day, — his dying farewell to us all, his peaceful 
and triumphant entrance into the dark valley, with the hope 
of an immortal waking with his Saviour. How hard it is, 
when bending over a dying child, to say, ' Father, thy will be 
done.' Even David, the man after God's own heart, cried 
out, ' O Absalom.' I think I have felt the same repeatedly, 
but after all, I think I gave them all up to God, and kissed 
the rod, and bowed down at the foot of the cross, and said, 
' Thy will be done, O Lord.' 

" ' Hope looks beyond the bounds of time, 
When what we now deplore, 
Shall rise in full immortal prime, 
And bloom to fade no more.' " 

Having, through sickness and its consequences, incurred 



59 

a debt, it became his duty, in the judgment of Mr. Fenn, 
about the year 1846, to go to New York, and work in 
the factory of his brother, who was a manufacturer of 
articles of pewter. " Fenn's faucets " are still a well- 
known utensil. For several years he spent most of his 
time thus, in separation from his home, till the object in view 
was fully realized. Meantime, the good wife presided in the 
domestic world of the old house on the hill. It was upon 
his return to New York, from a visit at home, during this 
period, that a very serious accident befell him, in connection 
with which, his recognition of the Divine Providence over 
him appears. He was riding on the top of the stage, which 
was rolling along on the road between Bristol and Plainville, 
a few rods east of the present school-house of District No. 
5, in Bristol, when an axle broke. It was in the month of 
March, the 12th day, — a cold morning, with ice at the road- 
side. He was thrown violently on the frozen ground and 
ice. His left foot and limb were so caught that the leg was 
broken, the ankle was dislocated, and the foot crushed, the 
sole of the shoe being torn off. So serious was this disaster, 
that he was laid aside by it until fall. In the interesting 
autobiographical accounts with which, in conversation, he 
used to favor his friends, he said of this occurrence, that his 
thought immediately was, " Thou, Lord, hast done this." 
God's hand, he did not doubt, was in the event. He was 
confident that God had a good end in view, in permitting 
him to suffer in such a way. And one of his statements, 



6o 

worthy of a place among the grandest deliverances of God's 
heroes, was this : " I would rather walk with God in the 
dark, than in the light alone." 

Before the writer lies a little paper-bound book of 198 
pages, entitled, " The American Physician, and Family 
Assistant, in Four Parts, by Elias Smith, Physician. Bos- 
ton: 1832." On the inside of the cover is a wood-cut 
portrait of Dr. Smith, "Born June 17, 1769." One com- 
pares this little flexible book, not much larger than a pocket 
diary, with the stately octavos and quartos of corresponding 
works of the present. In size, it is nothing in comparison. 
But, upon turning the leaves, one finds evidence of a mind 
ahead of its time in true progress >; in some particulars at 
at least ; as, for example, the book closes with a rhymed 
objurgation of the use of calomel, the last two verses of 
which are : 

" Physicians of my former choice, 
Receive my counsel and advice ; 
Be not offended though I tell 
The dire effects of calomel. 

" And when I must resign my breath, 
Pray let me die a natural death, 
And bid you all a long farewell, 
Without one dose of calomel." 

To this physician, using only vegetable medicines, Mr. 
Fenn applied, after his sickness, to which we have already 
alluded, had been unsuccessfully treated by neighboring 
practitioners. The writer remembers hearing a worthy 



6i 

citizen of the country hold forth, somewhat excitedly, in 
town-meeting, more than thirty years ago, who avowed 
himself to be, and always to have been, a "Thompsonian 
Democrat." Made aware of his mistake, by the laughter of 
his auditors, he withdrew the novel, and medicinal designa- 
tion, by which he had described his democracy, and said he 
intended to call himself a " Jeffersonian Democrat." Dr. 
Smith seems to have used the Thompsonian treatment, 
truly so called, and to have been of benefit to his patient. 
At one of his visits, he brought with him a medical 
student, Samuel T. Salisbury, who remained in Plymouth, 
became established in medical practice, married the eldest 
daughter of Mr. Fenn, lived to old age, and died ten 
years before his patient. It may have been due to his 
connection with Dr. Smith, that Mr. Fenn became extra- 
ordinarily well-informed in the nature and properties of 
plants. Never till his acquaintance with Mr. Fenn, 
did the writer have the opportunity presented to him, to 
learn in a homely, practical way, the names and virtues 
of the wayside plants. But Mr. Fenn knew them ; and it 
almost seemed as though the plants knew him. To 
the writer they have a different aspect from that which 
formerly they bore — the aspect of a mutual friend — 
queen of the meadow, and trumpet-weed, yarrow, lobelia, 
and the rest, so far as by memory's aid they come back 
again, in answer to the roll-call. 

Mr. Fenn took pleasure, in winter, in watching the 



62 

squirrels, and the bluejays, and other birds, partaking of the 
free repast which was set out for them, on a little shelf, 
high up, at the outer side of the porch of the old house 
on the hill. Between him and the natural world, there 
seemed to be a good understanding. It is himself, indeed, 
who writes in his diary, in the cold and blustering month 
of March : " Soon the balmy days of Spring will come ; 
the earth be wrapt in beauty ; the grass spring up ; the 
flowers open their petals ; the birds warble their carols ; 
all nature rejoice in the beneficent Creator." To him, 
and such as he, the beautiful lines of the poet, Cowper, 
were designed to apply : 

" His are the mountains, and the valleys his, 
And the resplendent rivers; his t' enjoy 
With a propriety which none can feel, 
But who, with filial confidence inspired, 
Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye, 
And, smiling, say, ' My Father made them all ! ' 
Are they not his by a peculiar right, 
And by an emphasis of interest his, 
Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy, 
Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind, 
With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love, 
That plann'd, and built, and still upholds, a world 
So clothed with beauty for rebellious man? " 

Will not the time come, when there will be introduced 
into our schools, more of the direct exploration of objects, 
in the various departments of Nature's wide empire ; when 
the child shall have his attention turned, more than now, 



63 

to the common creatures of God, about him — the plant, 
the animal, the soil, the stone, the air, the sun, the star ; 
when he shall look more widely, and particularly, into 
the wonders of his own structure and being ? 

It remains to say, of the mid-day period of the life of 
our friend, that when the growth of the village of Terryville 
reached such a stage, as to make it apparently desirable 
and best, that a church should be organized in the com- 
munity, he was one of the original forty-nine — fifty save 
one — who withdrew from the church at Plymouth Center, 
to unite in forming the new organization. To the pastor 
of that church, Rev. Ephraim Lyman, he was warmly 
attached. And with the first pastor of the Church in 
Terryville, Rev. Nathaniel Richardson, he formed a friend- 
ship, during the two years of his pastorate, which was 
emphatically life-long. On the last day of our friend's 
stay on earth, a letter, replete with strong consolation, was 
brought in, written to him by Mr. Richardson, which he 
desired to be read to him — dying though he seemed then 
to be — and to which he requested that an answer should 
be sent. Towards the first pastor's successor, Rev. Merrill 
Richardson, D.D., and the others, who have occupied the 
sacred office in the parish, he has ever been a warm friend, 
and with them a cordial fellow-laborer. Preeminently was he 
the friend of ministers, as the servants of God. " I do love 
those who labor to build up God's Kingdom," he wrote ; 
and again : " I love to go up to God's house. I had 
rather be a doorkeeper there, than a king on his throne," 




EVENING. 



Reader, do you remember some tranquil evening, when 
the twilight was lengthened greatly, and you sat with others, 
perhaps out of doors, in the genial air of Summer ? The 
day was done. The marginal hour you spent in quiet, 
restful talk ; perhaps even you read, while, with singular 
favor, the heavens reflected upon you the lingering rays 
of the departed sun. 

It was a long eventide, with which our friend's day 
of life on earth closed. The same home which cradled 
him, gave him a quiet, comfortable retreat in age. It 
heard his first cry, and his last trembling accents. 
Through its open doors, it had let him gently out, a 
toddling infant, making his first essays in walking. 
Through the same doors it kindly received him — eighty 
years and more afterward — when, a tottering grandsire, 
he came in from his last steps outside its walls. Now 
we see the merry boy, amiable we know he was, — frolic- 
some, gathering joy from almost everything, as the 
bee sips sweetness from flowers, — welcoming cold winter 
with glee. " In my youthful days, the coming winter was 
9 



66 

hailed with delight. The whistling of the wind, the snow 
flying, were all in harmony with my boyish nature." 
Again, we see the aged man, sitting in the old arm-chair 
in the corner, near the glowing stove. Winter now is 
painfully endured, as a sort of rough jailer. "The snow 
blows ; and old Boreas howls around, and reminds me I 
am a prisoner." But though the infirmities, which time 
brings, were inevitable, it was a blessed thing, in the 
experience of the aging couple, that they need not depart 
from the familiar home, where most of their united life 
had passed. The completion of fifty years together — 
the golden anniversary of husband and wife — came, on 
February 13, 1866. 

From an account published at the time, are gathered the 
following particulars, of the manner in which the day was 
celebrated. The children, grandchildren, old neighbors, and 
friends, assembled at the homestead. Four persons were 
present, who were the sole survivors of the large number 
who attended the original wedding. Rev. E. M. Wright, the 
acting pastor of the church in Terryville, conducted a reli- 
gious service in the afternoon, reading from the old family 
Bible, published in Oxford, England, in 1789 ; he gave out 
the hymn, which was sung at the wedding fifty years 
before, and then delivered an appropriate address of con- 
siderable length, in the course of which he said : " It was a 
union which gave much satisfaction to your relations and 
friends, and it was deemed eminently suitable by all. It 



6 7 

was the common opinion, frequently expressed, that you were 
worthy of each other, — not unequally yoked together ; and 
revolving years have confirmed the correctness of that 
opinion. Tradition says (and I can readily believe it) that 
you were a very handsome couple ; persons, too, of good dis- 
positions and habits ; and that you might live long and hap- 
pily, was the wish and prayer of all good people in the com- 
munity." He dwelt upon the unusual fact of the length of 
their married life, alluded to the marvelous changes that had 
taken place, during the half century; but reminded them that 
God had not changed, nor the Bible, nor the Gospel of salva- 
tion ; that they had found Christ faithful to every promise, 
and ordering all things pertaining to them for their good, and 
that it was their privilege and joy, to trust him for the future. 
" We hope," he said, in closing, " that it may be granted 
to both of you, to live, and see many good days yet, in the 
land of the living. But God knows best. Let us cheerfully 
submit all to His wisdom, and be prepared, whether we are 
old or young, for a change of worlds, for we know not what 
shall be on the morrow. And may the God of Abraham, 
and of Isaac, and of Jacob, be your God, and the God of your 
children, and your children's children, unto the latest genera- 
tion. Amen and Amen." After the religious services, a 
collation was served. Among the presents given upon the 
occasion, was an illustrated Bible, containing the photo- 
graphs of the children and friends, and inscribed " To our 
parents ; presented by their children at their golden wed- 



68 

ding." The delightful season of the afternoon was repeated 
in the evening, by the coming together of the young people, 
to pay their respects to Mr. and Mrs. Fenn, and to prolong, 
with youthful hilarity, the joyful celebration of an event, of 
so deep and general interest. The hope declared by Pastor 
Wright, that it might be granted to both husband and wife, 
to " see many good days yet in the land of the living," was 
not a groundless one. Nearly seven years — a week of years 
— had rolled by, — it lacked but eight days, of the full meas- 
ure of that period. On the night of February 3, 1866, Mr. 
and Mrs. Fenn had retired to rest, when, unannounced, the 
messenger, Death, came. The husband perceived a peculiar 
breathing of his wife — spoke to hen She did not answer. 
The end had come. What God had joined together, not 
man, but God Himself had put asunder, till the golden 
reunion of heaven. 

" And so consumed, she melted from my arms, 
And left me, on the earth, disconsolate." 

Thus wrote that poet of our fathers, Wordsworth. It was a 
great mercy that this wife of fifty-seven years did not suffer 
and languish, and "consume" away, with long sickness. Yet 
God's will is ever best. It was His will that she should 
lie down to rest, at the close of one more day of useful, 
happy life, and waken in heaven. That was a night indeed 
to the companion who remained. How many times he was 
afterward heard to speak, of going to his " lonely room." 
How lonely it must have been ! It is not strange that he 
looked over this world, beyond. Very much of the time, he 



6 9 

recalled the past, when they, who had gone on before, were 
with him here. " Perhaps their gentle spirits are hovering 
around me. I love to think it may be so. I am satisfied 
there is One who is always with me, and One who sticketh 
closer than a brother ; it is He, who shed his blood on 
Calvary for me, to redeem my soul from death, and left the 
'gate ajar' for me." In his diary, under date of February 
3, 1876, is this entry. ... " Three years ago, the com- 
panion of my youth, and mother of my children, followed 
the pioneers of our band who had gone before, and left me 
to walk down to the tomb alone ; but my Saviour took me 
up, and permitted me to lay my weary head on His arm, 
and gave me His love and sustaining grace." 

In his memorandum book, a fragment of the paper, on 
which the following lines were printed, was found, after his 
death. Years before, he had said to the writer, that they 
expressed his feelings. They are from the pen of C. P. 
C ranch : 

" Through the gray willows the bleak winds are raving, 
Here on the shore, with its drift-wood and sands ; 
Over the river the lilies are waving, 

Bathed in the sunshine of Orient lands ; 
Over the river, the wide dark river, 
Spring-time and summer are blooming forever. 

" Here all alone on the rocks I am sitting, 

Sitting and waiting — my comrades all gone, 
Shadows of mystery, drearily flitting 

Over the surf, with its sorrowing moan, 
Over the river, the strange cold river; 
Ah ! must I wait for the boatman forever ? 



7o 

" Wife, and children, and friends were around me ; 

Labor and rest were as wings to my soul ; 
Honor and love were the laurels that crowned me ; 

Little I recked how the dark waters roll ; 
But the deep river, the gray misty river, 
All that I lived for, has taken forever. 

" Silently came back a boat o'er the billows, 

Stealthily grated the keel on the sand, 
Rustling footsteps were heard through the willows, 
There the dark boatman stood, waving his hand, 
Whispering, I come o'er the shadowy river,— 
She who is dearest must leave thee forever. 

" Suns that were brightest, and skies that were bluest, 
Darkened and paled, in the message he bore. 
Year after year went the fondest and truest, 

Following that beckoning hand to the shore, 
Down to the river, the cold, grim river, 
Over whose waters they vanished forever. 

" Yet not in vision of grief have I wandered; 

Still have I toiled, tho' my ardors have flown ; 
Labor is manhood, and life is but squandered, 

Dreaming vague dreams of the future alone ; 
Yet from the tides of that mystical river, 
Voices of spirits are whispering ever. 

" Lonely and old, in the dust I am waiting, 

Till the dark boatman, with soft-muffled oar, 
Glide o'er the waves, and I hear the keel grating, 

See the dim, beckoning hand on the shore, 
Wafting me over the welcoming river, 
To gardens and homes, that are shining forever." 



7> 

These verses have much of sadness in them. And they 
were suited, thus, to the use of our friend. But he was 
not always sad, by any means. While he would say, at 
one time : " I feel the weight of years, and eternity 
drawing near;" at many another time, he would expatiate 
in the scenes, and among the persons, of the past, and, 
like the minstrels of other days, across the sea, favor his 
visitor with portraits of people that were, incidents grave 
or humorous, scraps of history, biography, pictures of cus- 
toms, now, and perhaps long since, obsolete. 

Can we recall some specimens, of this sort of his fire- 
side talk ? Young men, in some numbers, used to go 
abroad from Connecticut, into other regions North and 
South, to sell clocks from house to house. There is now 
and then a white-haired man, still living in the vicinity, 
who, in his early years, followed this business. Among 
those who have passed off the stage, was one, well-known 
to Mr. Fenn, who seems to have had a sharp eye for 
the main chance. It is rather pleasant to know, that he 
went to the North, with his clocks, rather than to the 
South. If he had gone to the South, he might have 
afforded an additional reason to our Southern brethren, 
for wishing to dissolve the Union. It seems, it was the 
custom then, for strangers, who met or put up together 
at a tavern, to toss up a cent, in order to determine which 
one should be at the expense of a " treat." This particular 
Yankee, in anticipation of this practice, and in order to 



72 

make sure that the " treat" should always fall upon the 
other man, filed off a face from each one of two coins, and, 
soldering the remnants together, made a cent with two 
heads upon it, one on each side. When, therefore, he 
said : " Heads, I win ; tails, I lose," he was master of 
the situation. It would not be strange, if the clocks that 
man sold, failed to keep exactly with the sun. 

" I have seen," says the historian, Hume, " a French 
manuscript, containing accounts of some private disburse- 
ments of this king (Edward II of England). There is 
an article, among others, of a crown paid to one, for mak- 
ing the king laugh. To judge of the events of the reign, 
this ought not to have been an easy undertaking." Our 
friend had a quick appreciation, and real enjoyment, of 
the humorous. He would tell with laughter, of the remark 
made to himself, by a man well-known in the community, 
universally respected, as a man and Christian, yet eccen- 
tric and droll. Uncle W. was present at church one 
Sunday, after an attack of sickness. His wife was ill at 
home. The two men met in the vestibule, after service. 
Mr. Fenn asked after the health of Mr. W., and that of 
his wife. Mr. W. replied, and added : " We have a great 
many trials in this life, some of which, if it was the will of 
Providence, we should be glad to dispense with." Mr. 
Fenn became greatly attached to the physicians, who 
attended upon him, and, with some merriment, repeated 
the opinion of one of them, that his body was like the 



73 

"one-horse shay," and would finally come down to dust, 
all at once. 

Overtaken, and completely drenched by a shower, upon 
one occasion, as the family were returning home from 
church, he minuted the fact in his diary, and added : " I 
thought of Rev. John Todd's remark, when he was so 
caught, that he did not believe in immersion, but was in 
favor of sprinkling." 

For the eleven years and a half which remained to him 
of life on the earth, after the departure of his companion, 
Mr. Fenn was a member of the family of his youngest 
son, who, with filial devotion, continued, after marriage, 
to make the old house his home. Earthly help typifies 
heavenly. Heavenly help is often given through earthly 
means. To the writer's mind, the entreaty of the aged 
pilgrim, just below, seems to have a direction manward, as 
well as Godward. " I know I shall soon finish my work 
on earth, and, Oh, my Father, wilt thou be with me?" 

" Be near when I am dying, 

Then close beside me stand ; 
Let me, while faint and sighing, 
Lean calmly on thy hand." 

It is, perhaps, correct to say, that notwithstanding the 
fact, that the home of Mr. Fenn was somewhat retired, 
and difficult of access, by reason of its location on the 
summit of Town-Hill, there was not a private house in the 
neighboring village which was resorted to by more persons, 

IO 



74 

for the purpose of a social call, or visit. In his diary occurs 
such an item, as this : " Ten calls to-day." Who went 
there ? Aged, middle-aged, and young. Numerous kin- 
dred, — children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, 
and relatives of other degrees. He was of a vigorous and 
prolific stock. In his earlier days, he had eighty first- 
cousins, although but two were living at his death. Little 
children, as well as larger, loved "Grandpa Fenn," 
and he always had some pleasing thing to give them. 
People, native and foreign-born, visited him. A neighbor- 
ing woman, wife and mother in an Irish family, said, on 
the morning of the funeral of Mr. Fenn : " My man was 
crying this forenoon, because Mr. Fenn is gone." 

Of a plant — a beautiful house-plant, before a window, 
tall, flaming with the abiding brightness of the scarlet 
blossoms — the lady who cared for it, said: "That plant 
grew from a slip in a bouquet, which a friend gave us, 
many months ago." A kind act, a neighborly attention, 
a gentle, friendly word, — what shall become of it ? Shall 
it just be looked at, and tossed out the door ? Shall it 
be kept in thought, for a few minutes, or hours, and soon 
dismissed, as of little worth ? Not thus does the loving 
soul. It cherishes that act of kindness done, that word 
of friendliness or affection, and, by and by, dwells, as in 
a garden of beauty. This was true of Mr. Fenn. It was 
precious to him, that his neighbors cared for him. No 
proffer of any kindness, from any source, met with repulse 



75 

from him, but always with warm appreciation. And so he 
lived in a sphere of flowering sympathies. The adversities 
of the lowliest burdened his soul. Between him and his 
fellow-men, was an open avenue, of mutual good-will and 
affection. 

A man that hath friends, must show himself friendly. 
Young men loved Mr. Fenn. The names of many appear in 
his diary (some of whom preceded him to the world of spirits), 
followed often by some such expression as, " Dear young 
man, I love him." One of his intimates was a young man, 
just crossing the sea, on his return from Europe, when the 
aged man bade the world good-bye. And for him he left his 
message of love. 

" And still to love, tho' pressed with ill, 
In wintry age to feel no chill, 
With me, is to be lovely still." 

Yes, and not with Cowper alone. 

The interest which this superannuated laborer in the 
Lord's vineyard took in others, appears in a passage of his 
diary, of date, January 22, 1877, having reference to a young 
lady of the village, who died the following February 5th : "I 

have been thinking of C . Must she die so young ? O, 

dear Saviour, wilt thou grant she may give her heart to 
thee, and leave the evidence she has gone to be with Christ. 
This is the burden of my prayer to-night." Elsewhere he 
records having called upon, and conversed with her, upon the 
great matter of salvation. And she did leave evidence, when 
she departed, that she had gone to be with Christ. 



76 

In one instance, when a long-needed rain had come, he 
thus writes of it: " Surely it is a kind Father's hand, that 
has sent down the blessing. May all praise Him. O, may 
a cloud soon be seen arising, if no larger than a man's hand, 
of Divine Grace, that will expand and rise over the whole 
place, and descend, and water the vineyard of the Lord 
here, and many souls flock into the Kingdom of Jesus." 
Disqualified, by the weakness of sickness and age, from 
laboring in a more vigorous manner, he employed much 
time in making articles, expressive of his domestic tastes 
and ways. Door-mats of finely split husks, colored in bands, 
were a favorite product ; and of a kind of bed-spread, of 
white cloth, ornamented with tufts of cotton, he said to the 
writer shortly before his death, he had made, in all, about 
thirty. These were bestowed upon friends, as tokens of 
his affection. " Had I wealth," he said, " I think I should 
put it into the bank of heaven, and draw my interest from 
thence." He was not only the recipient of calls ; but 
delighted, when able, to visit others. To the homes of 
his children first— the two daughters residing in the village 
— he was accustomed to resort ; then to many others, espe- 
cially of the sick and aged. A long list of names was 
found among his papers, after his death, of families where 
he had visited, along with the pastor. 

From the old house on the hill, representative New Eng- 
land home, radiated many chords of affection, vibrating musi- 
cally under the touch of memory — many lines of communica- 



77 

tion between it, and hearts and homes, near and remote. 

Here is a letter from one, who, formerly a resident of the 

vicinity, and a near friend of the family, had removed to a 

new home in the West. 

Elmwood, III., November 12, 1877. 
Dear Father Fenn: 

This autumn night, 

While fire and lamps are burning bright, 

I seat me in their cheerful light, 

And will attempt to you to write. 

A backward look I fondly cast, 

I think of all our treasured past. 

Sweet memories gather thick and fast, 

As leaves before the wintry blast. 

Again I sit beside your chair, 

See your dear face and whitening hair 

(Which time has only made more fair), 

And learn great lessons rich and rare, 

Lessons of patience and of love, 

Of confidence in God above, 

And trust, which earth can never move. 

Dear aged friend, I long to grasp 

Your hand within a friendly clasp, 

That welcoming smile again to see, 

And 'neath thy roof once more to be. 

It may be we shall meet once more, 

Upon this changeful, storm-beat shore ; 

It may be, friend, we next shall meet 

Where storms of earth shall never beat. 

I love to think that in the Home 

Where sin nor death can ever come, 

We'll meet and talk of by-gone days, 

And, lost in wonder, love, and praise, 



78 

Our heavenly joys together share, 

And bless His love who brought us there 

Dear Father, may our Saviour shed 

The oil of gladness on your head : 

Forever shall His mighty arm 

Shield you from every ill and harm ; 

His love shall guard from every ill; 

His rod and staff shall comfort still ; 

And, as descends your earthly night, 

" At evening-time it shall be light." 

J. J. S. 

In the Appendix B will be found communications, received 
by the friends of Mr. Fenn, after his death, from three of his 
principal correspondents, viz. : Deacon Joel Blakeslee, once 
Deacon of the Church in Plymouth, afterward, and at pres- 
ent, Deacon of the South Congregational Church in Bridge- 
port ; Rev. Nathaniel Richardson, first pastor of the Church 
in Terryville ; and Rev. H. B. Mead, pastor of the same 
Church, from 1871 to 1874. Also an expression of his 
regard for Mr. Fenn, will there be found, from Rev. J. W. 
Backus of Plainville. The character of Mr. Fenn appears 
pretty clearly in the foregoing pages. As we draw this 
account of him to a close, it may be of profit to the reader 
to have his attention directed, as in part by way of recapitu- 
lation, to some particulars, in which Mr. Fenn is very 
strongly impressed upon the memory of his friends. One 
of these was his sense of the Divine presence with him, and 
providence over him. Once he wrote, " Now, as I stand at 
the threshold of the door that opens on immortality, I can 



79 

look and see my Heavenly Father's hand, that led me, 
and guided my footsteps all through, and gave me strength 
equal to my day." These were favorite lines with him : 

" God is never so far off, 
As even to be near ; 
He is within us ; our spirit is 
The home He holds most dear." 

" When I am here alone," he once remarked, " I have no 
doubt that Jesus is present in the room, not a doubt." 
Another element in the character of our friend, was his affec- 
tionate trust in God, and in His Son, our Saviour. " I have 
been thinking that if any one should ask me now, what is my 
hope, I should say, " I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, with 
all my heart, and my hope is in God, and my expectation 
from Him." Again he said, " I am at peace, at rest. Jesus 
knows that I love Him ; and I think He loves me." More 
than once he has been heard to say, "I feel, when I 
retire at night, that I want to lie right down at the feet of 
Jesus, and take right hold of Him, and go to sleep; and 
whether to awake here, or there, I would not choose." And 
a further instance of his expression of submission, and 
aspiration, and trust, was as follows : " I feel perfectly sub- 
missive to the will of God, whether I am to live or die. I 
desire to have Christ with me, in me, and around me, all the 
while. Nearer my God to Thee, nearer to Thee. Why 
should I fear to cross the river, and be with my Saviour?" 
He loved to quote the lines : 



8o 

" My knowlege of that life is small, 
The eye of faith is dim, 
But 'tis enough that He knows all, 
And I shall be with Him." 

His gratitude and praisefulness were a prominent feature 
in Mr. Fenn. " I am still confined to the house" — thus he 
expressed himself in one instance — " by continued ill-health. 
I have this day called up to my mind the many blessings my 
Heavenly Father has conferred upon me. Although my body 
is diseased, my vocal powers long hushed in silence — per- 
haps forever, — yet my mental faculties are good. I can read 
God's Holy Word ; the light of my eyes is still good ; my 
temporal wants are all supplied ; and shall I complain ? No. 
May my whole soul go up to God, in a song of praise and 
thanksgiving, for His unmerited blessings." 

We will only mention, further, that our friend ever evinced 
a lowly mind ; and with an humble opinion of himself, was 
united the desire of holiness. He felt that he was a sin- 
ner ; and we would not eulogize him, as though he were 
perfect in the sight of God. Yet it was evident, that the 
Grace of Christ had wrought great effects of saintliness 
in him. He was not a stranger to seasons of prayerful 
heart-searching. "I am alone this evening," is the record 
at one place. "I find it good at times to be alone; and 
meditate on things unseen and eternal, and see how I 
stand with God, — if He has indeed the affections of my 
heart. I think I love Him for what He is of Himself, 
and love holiness for holiness' sake. Dear Jesus, let me 



not be deceived with a false hope, that will perish when 
I appear before Thee ; but search me and try me, and 
lead me in the way of life everlasting." Similarly, at 
another time, he says: "If I know my own heart, there 
is nothing I desire so much, as to be wholly consecrated 
to the Lord. O Father in heaven, wilt Thou give me a 
clear view of Thy character ; and may I love Thee, for 
what Thou art of Thyself, and love holiness for holiness' 
sake." 

A story is current in Ohio, of John Quincy Adams, 
"the old man eloquent," that when he was present, and 
delivered the address, at the laying of the corner-stone of 
the observatory, at Cincinnati, about forty years ago, a 
river captain, charmed with the oratory of Mr. Adams, 
who was then about seventy-seven years old, exclaimed : 
"What a pity that so good an engine could not be taken 
out, and put into a new hull!" 

Now, does not that wish of the steamboat captain, bring 
to mind just the provision, which the Holy Scriptures inform 
us, the Heavenly Father has made for His children? " For 
we know, that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were 
dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, 
earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which 
is from heaven. If so be, that being clothed, we shall not 
be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do 
groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, 
ii 



82 

but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up 
of life." II Corinthians v, 1-4. 

"This mud-wall cottage shakes. I shall soon become 
an heir of immortality. O my Jesus, prepare me for rest 
in Thy kingdom." So wrote our friend, toward the last. 
And more than once has the writer heard him, after allud- 
ing to his bodily condition, repeat, in his own impressive 
way: 

" My spirit, with laborious strife, 
Bears up the crazy load, 
And drags these poor remains of life, 
Along the weary road." 

It had been a prayer with him, that his mental faculties 
might hold out, until his earth-work was done. And until 
almost the last, the " engine " worked grandly. " What a pity 
that so good an engine could not be taken out, and put 
into a new hull ! " What a pity that such a beautiful, dear 
spirit could not be transferred to a new, and glorious body ! 
Ah, but that is just what death means, to the Christian. 
The same body ? If so, yet it will be new. There is 
an old house, a few miles out of our village, which has 
lately been made over. A part of the original frame 
remains. But the old house is thoroughly renovated. Its 
inmates are sheltered beneath a snug roof, and behind 
close walls, they walk on new, firm, smooth floors, and 
look out of new, open, clear windows. The home is old, 
but the house is practically new. "For our citizenship 
is in heaven ; from whence also we wait for the Saviour, 



83 

the Lord Jesus Christ ; who shall fashion anew the body 
of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body 
of His glory, according to the working whereby He is 
able even to subject all things unto Himself." 

The last day on earth was Wednesday, August 20, 1884. 
To himself it was manifest, that he was going. By an 
increase of disorders, to which he had long been subject, 
he had been, for some days, confined to his bed. Dissolu- 
tion came on apace. His soul was, for the most part, con- 
fident and peaceful. On Monday, he said: "One night, 
not long since, I was awake, and very despondent, — never 
more so. I could not pray, — could only cry out, ' I am 
stricken ; O God, undertake for me.' It was not a minute, 
till I was full of joy, and thanksgiving. All my despond- 
ency was gone, and I have felt very little since." Looking 
at the " Silent Comforter," on the wall, — one of the many 
gifts of affection which he had received — he read slowly, 
and emphatically, from it, " There — is — a friend — that — 
sticketh — closer — than — a brother." He spoke, repeat- 
edly, of the comfort he had, reading those passages from 
the "Silent Comforter," — all he then could read. The 
children — all but the oldest son, in distant Michigan — 
with some of the grandchildren, gathered once more about 
him, — of whom he had written years before : " It is pleas- 
ant to have children, and grandchildren, come around, with 
their loving hearts. It cheers up the drooping spirits of 
the aged parent, as he looks upon his offspring, full of life 



8 4 

and activity." As the peculiar change of the solemn hour 
came over him, he was supported, much of the time, in 
the arms of filial love. Sinking into sleep, he would 
waken again, and look eagerly into the faces of his chil- 
dren, remaining near him. Once, articulating with diffi- 
culty, he broke out, addressing his son's wife, and gazing 
intently at her : " God bless you, M., for all you have done 
for me." Again, he began to repeat the lines of the poet, 
Pope, entitled the " Dying Christian ; " and, though several 
times overmastered by the dying stupor, as often as he 
recovered himself, took up again the triumphant death- 
song, until he had finished it. As repeated by him, it 
was indeed the language of the dying Christian : 

" Vital spark of heavenly flame ! 
Quit, oh, quit this mortal frame ; 
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying, 
Oh, the pain ! — the bliss of dying ! 
Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife, 
And let me languish into life ! 

" Hark ! they whisper ; angels say, 
' Sister spirit, come away; ' 
What is this absorbs me quite, — 
Steals my senses, shuts my sight, 
Drowns my spirit, draws my breath ? 
Tell me, my soul, can this be death ? 

" The world recedes, — it disappears ! 
Heaven opens on my eyes ! — my ears 
With sounds seraphic ring ! 
Lend, lend your wings ! I mount ! I fly ! 
' O Grave ! where is thy victory ? 
O Death ! where is thy sting ? ' " 



85 

At one o'clock, on the morning of Thursday, August 21st, 
he ceased to breathe, and the long life on earth, of eighty- 
seven years, one month, and twenty-six days, was ended. 

On Friday, August 22d, the old house on the hill opened 
its doors, once more, and received the thronging company of 
people, Protestant and Roman Catholic, who came to say 
good-bye; and, while mourning the departure of their vene- 
rated friend, to thank God for His Grace unto His servant, 
and unto men through him. Hymns were sung ; a dis- 
course was preached, from Psalm xcii, 14, " They shall still 
bring forth fruit in old age ; " prayer was offered ; and, after 
the last view of the peaceful face was taken, the large con- 
course moved on, descending along the road delineated in 
the opening lines of this book, through the village to the 
cemetery, and laid down the visible form of the dear, 
dear man, in the grave. There it is peacefully resting 
now, even as he himself, once, had written, " I have been 
to the cemetery to-day, and viewed the place where the dust 
of loved ones sleep, and the place where I expect my poor 
remains will sleep, ere long ; but we shall not be there." 

Let our tribute to him close, with the appreciative and 
affectionate words of his grandson, Colonel Augustus H. 
Fenn : 

" ' Age is dark and unlovely,' 

says Ossian ; but Cicero has described its beauties ; and Elam 
Fenn illustrated them in his life. To those who knew and 
loved him, the level rays of the setting sun will ever seem 



86 

more glorious, than its mid-day glow. ' Crabbed age and 
youth cannot live together/ said Shakespeare ; but his age 
was not crabbed ; and youth lived with it, and adored it. It 
was like old wine and ripe fruit, the sparkle in the cup, the 
blush upon the peach. The vital spark was purely of 
heavenly flame. It shone brighter and brighter, as the 
morning star, in the darkness before the dawn, until absorbed 
in the light of the perfect day. It was electric and eclec- 
tic ; it gathered fuel for its flame, from every experience and 
vicissitude of life, as the bees extract honey from the weed 
and flower. It was set upon a hill, and it was not hid. It 
shone before men, and was seen ; and the Father glorified. 
The beatitudes were his. He was poor in spirit. He was 
called to mourn. He was meek, merciful, pure in heart, a 
peacemaker. He hungered and thirsted after righteous- 
ness, and to him the promises have not failed, and will not 
ever fail. 

"And so, when, into his open grave, the starting rain-drops 
fell, a sunbeam gleamed in every drop, and a rainbow sat 
upon the clouds, its foot upon his coffin, and its head upon 
the sky." 



APPENDIX A 



GENEALOGY. 



FENN. 

A fragment of a deed is in existence, by which property is 
conveyed from John Warner to Jason Fenn, on March 6, 
1 77 1. This favors the opinion, entertained by a very old 
friend, that the name of the grandfather of Elam Fenn was 
Jason Fenn. But Mr. Morris Fenn, son of Jesse Fenn 
named below, and cousin of Elam Fenn, states that the 
name of their grandfather was Thomas Fenn. Accordingly 
it is so given, in this brief genealogy. We have not traced 
the lineage further back. 

Thomas Fenn. 1 His wife's name was Christian Fenn. 
The remains of Thomas and Christian Fenn were buried 
in the old cemetery, in Thomaston ; and were exhumed, 
with those of others, in 1883, and re-interred in the new 
cemetery, on the hill-side, west of the village. There their 
graves are marked by head-stones, bearing respectively the 
following inscriptions, viz. : 



88 



In Memory of 
M r Thomas Fenn 

who Departed 

this Life April 25 

1769 in the 62 year 

of his Age. 



In Memory of 

M rs Christian wife 

of M r Tho s Fenn 

who Departed 

this Life May 1 

1768 in the 49 year 

of her Age. 



The names of the children of Thomas and Christian Fenn 
are given, without knowledge of their proper order, nor 
with certainty that there is no error in the list. 

Thomas, 

Samuel, 

Joseph, 

Jason, 

Jacob, 

Eber, 

Jesse, 

Isaac, 

Susan (or Sara), m. Jesse Sanford, 

Esther, m. Elijah Warner. 

Jason 2 (Thomas 1 ), b. Nov. 19, 175 1 ; m. Jan. 15, 1778, 
Martha Potter, who was b. Mar. 16, 1754, and d. June 21, 
1827, dau. of Dea. Daniel Potter of North Haven; d. Mar. 
28, 1819. 

Martha, b. Nov. 10, 1778; m. Linus Blakesley; d. Sep. 3, 1847. 
Mary, b. May 6, 1780; m. John Howe ; d. New Haven, Sep. 21, 1805. 
Betsey, b. July 4, 1782 ; m. Abijah Warner, who d. Sep. 19, 1817, aged 34 ; 

m. Jacob Latimer, who d. Aug. 30, 1848, aged 77; d. Terry ville, June 

29, 1858. 
Gaius, b. June 29, 1784 ; d. New Haven, Apr. 7, 1854. 
Eunice, b. Aug. 13, 1787 ; m. Eli Lewis of Bristol ; d. Mar., 1851. 
Lucy, b. Sep. 21, 1790; m. Hezekiah Burr, who was b. in Hartford, and 

d. in Hartford Jan. 9, 1855, a S e d 61 yrs; d. Springfield, Mass., Jan. 5, 

1879. 
Jason, b. May 15, 1784 ; d. New Haven, Dec. 8, 1849. 
Elam, b. June 26, 1797 ; d. Terryville, Aug. 21, 1884. 
David, b. Mar. 10, 1803 ; d. Mar. 21, 1803. 



8 9 

El am 3 (Jason, 2 Thomas 1 ), b. June 26, 1797; m. Feb. 13, 
1 8 16, Lydia At water, dau. of Timothy Atwater, who was b. 
June 17, 1797, andd. Feb. 3, 1873 ; d. Aug. 21, 1884. 

Harriet, b. June 2, 1819; m. Sep. 4, 1836, Samuel T. Salisbury, M.D., of 

Plymouth, who d. Mar. I, 1874 ; d. Dec. 15, 1850. 
Elam Atwater, b. Mar. 2, 1821 ; m. Oct. 15, 1842, Mary J. Barker ; resides 

in Allegan, Mich. 
Lucius Augustus, b. Apr. 2, 1823 ; m. Esther Maria Hall, Feb. 23, 1843, 

who was b. Dec. 14, 1827, and d. Jan. 18, 1844; m. Merab Hall, Ap. 1, 

1845 > m - Ann J u dd Brown, Dec. 2, 1850, who was b. July 14, 1824 ; 

d. Ap. 17, 1859. 
Albert Potter, b. Feb. 4, 1826 ; d. Mar. 10, 1845. 
Lydia Antoinette, b. Sep. 14, 1828; d. Mar. 16, 1831. 
Gaius, b. Nov. 1, 1831 ; m. Dec. 26, 1865, Nellie L. Smith; m. Dec. 15, 

1870, Ellen Clark; d. Feb. 11, 1872. 
Antoinette, b. Mar. 5, 1834; d. Aug. 21, 1850. 

Amelia Evans, b. Mar. 11, 1836; m. Nov. 2, 1853, Willard T. Goodwin. 
Jason Cornelius, b. Oct. 27, 1838 ; m. Apr. 15, 1868, Mary Olivia Johnson. 
Elvira, b. June 10, 1841 ; m. Nov. 15, 1865, Edward Whiting Rouse. 

Harriet 4 (Elam, 3 Jason, 2 Thomas 1 ), b. June 2, 18 19; m. 
Sept. 4, 1836, Samuel Thurber Salisbury, M.D., of Plymouth, 
who d. Mar. i, 1874; d. Dec. 15, 1850. 

Frances Elizabeth, b. July 22, 1837 ; d. Sept. 4, 1848. 
Lydia Thurber, b. Aug. 22, 1840; d. Sept. 21, 1848. 

Elam Atwater 4 (Elam 3 , Jason, 2 Thomas 1 ), b. Mar. 2, 
1 82 1 ; m. Oct. 15, 1842, Mary J. Barker. 

Albert Hobart, b. Aug. 18, 1843 ; m. Feb. 22, 1870, Kate Bailey ; d. Sept. 

29, 1882. 
Irene, b. Nov. 24, 1844; m - Apr. 2, 1861, Henry L. Blakeslee, who was 

killed in battle, Mar. 6, 1863 ; m. Oct. 2, 1869, James Reeve. 
John Crawford, b. Mar. 9, 1853. 

Libbie, b. Oct. 12, 1856; m. Jan. 16, 1873, Harvey Alphonso Warner. 
Frank, b. Feb. 5, 1859; m. Mar. 19, 188 1, Emma Wilcox. 

Albert Hobart 6 (Elam Atwater, 4 Elam, 3 Jason, 2 Thomas'), 



90 

b. Aug. 1 8, 1843; m - Feb. 22, 1870, Kate Bailey; d. Sept. 
29, 1882. 

Maud, b. May 22, 187 1. 

Hobart Bailey, b. Feb. 1, 1873 ; d. Nov. 20, 1873. 
Alta Irene, b. Sept. 22, 1874; d. Apr. 12, 1875. 
Claire Albert, b. Sept. 22, 1878. 

Irene 5 (Elam Atwater, 4 Elam, 3 Jason, 2 Thomas 1 ), b. Nov. 
24, 1844; m. April 2, 1861, Henry Lee Blakeslee, who 
was killed in battle, March 6, 1863; m. Oct. 2, 1869, 
James Reeve. 

Daughter of Henry Lee Blakeslee, 
Hattie Elizabeth, b. June 20, 1862; m. Feb. 23, 1881, John H. Crane. 

Children of James Reeve, 
Nellie Amelia, b. Oct. 11, 1868. 
Daisy Irene, b. Oct. 10, 1870. 

Edna Isadore, b. Oct. 30, 1875. 
Elam Fenn, b. Nov. 2, 1879; d- May 30, 1880. 

Leon, b. May 22, 1881. 

Libbie 5 (Elam Atwater 4 , Elam 3 , Jason 2 , Thomas 1 ), b. Oct. 
12, 1856; m. Jan. 16, 1873, Harvey Alphonso Warner. 

Ruth, b. Jan. 3, 1874. 

Frank, b. Oct. 28, 1877. 

Elam Harvey, b. Nov. 1, 1881. 

Frank 5 (Elam Atwater, 4 Elam, 3 Jason, 2 Thomas 1 ), b. Feb. 
5, 1859; m. March 19, 1881, Emma Wilcox. 

Jason Frank, b. Jan. 25, 1882. 

Hattie Elizabeth (Blakeslee)' (Irene, 5 Elam Atwater, 4 
Elam, 3 Jason, 2 Thomas 1 ), b. June 20, 1862 ; m. Feb. 23, 
1881, John H. Crane. 

Ethel, b. Jan. 28, 1882. 

Unnamed child, b. Nov. 16, 1883 ; d. Jan. 12, 1884. 



9i 

Lucius Augustus 4 (Elam, 3 Jason, 2 Thomas 1 ), b. April 
2, 1823; m. Feb. 23, 1843, Esther Maria Hall, who was 
b. Dec. 14, 1827, and d. Jan. 18, 1844; m. April 1, 1845, 
Merab Hall; m. Dec. 2, 1850, Ann Judd Brown, who was 
b. July 14, 1824; d. April 17, 1859. 

Son of Esther Maria Hall, 
Augustus Hall, b. Jan. 18, 1844; m. Nov. 26, 1868, Mary Frances Smith; 
m. June 30, 1879, Mary Elizabeth Lincoln. 

Children of Merab Hall, 
Maria Esther, b. Dec. 3, 1846; m. Aug. 19, 1870, Isaac Hall. 
Benjamin Holt, b. July 22, 1849 ; m. Aug. 16, 1876, Annie Elizabeth Farrell. 

Children of Ann Judd Brown, 
Elliott Judd, b. Sept. 1, 1851 ; m. Oct. 5, 1882, Annie M. Cooke. 
Sarah Ann, b. Feb. 7, 1854; m. Dec. 12, 1875, Charles Austin of Bristol; 

d. May 5, 1879. 
Amelia Burr, b.July 28, 1855; m. July 24, 1878, Walter A. Ingra- 

ham. 
Harriet Antoinette, b. Sept. 22, 1857. 
Augusta Lydia, b. Nov. 24, 1859; m. June 25, 1879, Samuel A. Herman. 

Augustus Hall 5 (Lucius Augustus, 4 Elam, 3 Jason, 2 
Thomas'), b. Jan. 18, 1844; m. Nov. 26, 1868, Mary 
Frances Smith; m. June 30, 1879, Mary Elizabeth Lincoln. 

Children of Mary Frances Smith, 
Emory Washburn, b. Dec. 13, 1869. 
Augusta Frances, b. Nov. 16, 187 1. 

Children of Mary Elizabeth Lincoln, 
Lucia Esther, b. Nov. 30, 1880. 
Lucius Augustus, b. June 21, 1882 ; d. Aug. 11, 1882. 

Maria Esther 6 (Lucius Augustus/ Elam, 3 Jason, 2 
Thomas'), b. Dec. 3, 1846; m. Aug. 19, 1870, Isaac Hall. 

John Augustus, b. Sept. 2, 1871. 
Viola Amelia, b. Apr. 2, 1873. 
Agnes Elizabeth, b. Jan. 30, 1875. 



9 2 

Martha Maria, b. Oct. 26, 1877. 

Aimer Noyce, b. Apr. 20, 1879. 

William Isaac, b. Nov. 3, 1881. 

Lottie Bell, b. Sept. 21, 1884. 

Benjamin Holt 5 (Lucius Augustus, 4 Elam, 3 Jason, 2 
Thomas 1 ), b. July 22, 1849; m - Aug. 16, 1876, Annie 
Elizabeth Farrell. 

William Joseph, b. June 10, 1877. 
Benjamin Thomas, b. Sept. 5, 1878. 
Annie Elizabeth, b. Dec. 12, 1879. 
George Augustus, b. Feb. 12, 1882. 
Edward Perry,. b. Apr. 1, 1884. 

Sarah Ann 5 (Lucius Augustus, 4 Elam, 3 Jason, 2 Thomas 1 ), 
b. Feb. 7, 1854; m. Dec. 12, 1875, Charles Austin of 
Bristol; d. May 5, 1879. 

Jessie, b. Aug. 23, 1877. 
Ellsworth, b. Apr. 28, 1879. 

Amelia Burr 5 (Lucius Augustus, 4 Elam, 3 Jason, 2 
Thomas 1 ), b. July 28, 1855 ; m. July 24, 1878, Walter A. 
Ingraham, of Bristol. 

Elias Andrew, b. Feb. 5, 1880. 
Euclid, b. Aug. 23, 1881. 

Augusta Lydia 5 (Lucius Augustus, 4 Elam, 3 Jason, 2 
Thomas 1 ), b. Nov. 24, 1859; m< J une 2 5> l %79> Samuel 
A. Herman, of Winsted. 

Claude Augustus, b. Apr. 2, 1881. 
Maude Fenn, b. Nov. 17, 1884. 

Amelia Evans 4 (Elam, 3 Jason, 2 Thomas 1 ), b. March 
11, 1836; m. Nov. 2, 1853, Willard Terry Goodwin. 

Willard Emerson, b. Nov. 24, 1855 ; m. Oct. 12, 1881, Louisa Lane Griggs. 
Lewis Albert, b. May 7, 1859 ; d. Aug. 28, 1863. 



93 

Ella Antoinette, b. Feb. 14, 1861 ; m. Nov. 6, 1878, Edgar Leroy Pond. 

Edward Clayton, b. June II, 1866. 

Ralph Cowles, b. Nov. 22, 1869. 

Jason Harold, b. Oct. 25, 1881 ; d. Aug. 31, 1882. 

Ella Antoinette (Goodwin) 5 (Amelia Evans, 4 Elam, s 
Jason, 2 Thomas 1 ), b. Feb. 14, 1861 ; m. Nov. 6, 1878, 
Edgar Leroy Pond. 

Howard Clayton, b. Aug. 21, 1881. 
Edgar Leroy, b. Dec. 26, 1883. 

Elvira 4 (Elam, 3 Jason, 2 Thomas 1 ), b. June 10, 1841 ; 
m. Nov. 15, 1865, Edward Whiting Rouse. 

Eva Clarina, b. Oct. 4, 1867. 

Celia Elvira, b. May 13, 1870. 

Ruth Lydia, b. Mar. 31, 1874; d. Dec. 20,1874. 

Orpha Amelia, b. Apr. 26, 1875; d. Sept. 30, 1875. 

Bessie Olivia, b. Feb. 3, 1877. 

Lucien Edward, b. Feb. 9, 1879. 

There are now living, of the descendants of Elam Fenn : 

Four children ; six have died. 

Nineteen grandchildren ; eight have died. 

Thirty-four great-grandchildren ; four have died. 

One great-great-grandchild ; one has died. 
Thus his descendants have been seventy-seven ; of whom 
fifty-eight are living. 



APPENDIX B 



LETTERS RECEIVED UPON THE OCCASION OF THE DEATH OF 

MR. FENN. 

The first communication is from Deacon Joel Blakeslee, of 
Bridgeport : 

The death of no other aged person, out of the circle of my own relatives, 
has ever so much impressed me. For many years we have taken sweet counsel 
together, in full sympathy on all moral and religious subjects. If ever I visit 
again the old Town-Hill, it will be with a deep feeling of loneliness and bereave- 
ment. How many letters I have received from him, though written by a weak 
and trembling hand, yet always evincing a calm, patient and heavenly spirit, 
full of a sense of God's love and goodness. I can hardly realize that I shall 
never more see his face, so expressive of the peace and tranquility within. I 
do not wonder that he was so much beloved, and his society prized by all 
classes, the old and the young. 

After all, I have a feeling akin to thankfulness, that he is at last released 
from his long experience of physical suffering in so many ways. Henceforth 
he will forever experience immortal youth and vigor, in the Eternal City of 
God, the Saints' Everlasting Rest. 

" No more the drops of piercing grief 
Shall swell into his eyes, 
Nor the meridian sun decline, 
Amid those brighter skies." 

It is my earnest prayer that, not his death alone, but his beautiful life, may 
be sanctified, not only to his children and grandchildren, whom he so tenderly 



95 

loved, but to us all who have so long enjoyed the influence of his good example 
and loving words. In an eminent degree, he left the world " in peace with 
God, and in charity with all mankind." 

The following lines, though perhaps highly figurative, I think will as well 
apply to him, as to any : 

" The beautiful gates are open again, 

The gates of the City of Light, 
And a Heavenly host come gliding down 

In robes of spotless white ; 
For a hero stands by the turbid stream, 

That borders the shining shore : 
The Master has sent an angel band, 

To carry the pilgrim o'er. 

" He has finished the work his Master gave, 

Each battle has nobly won ; 
His well-worn armor is laid aside, 

His work on earth is done. 
The weary soldier's eyes are closed, 

As he sweetly sinks to rest, 
And is wafted through the trackless air, 

Asleep on an angel's breast. 

" From slumbers sweet he'll soon awake, 

Wake never again to sleep, 
And never more grow weary and worn, 

Or watch, and pray, or weep ; 
But dwell with the King he loved so well, 

Ne'er from His side to roam, 
And loving angels will gather around, 

To welcome the soldier home. 



9 6 

" And angels will hasten down to earth, 

From their beautiful home above, 
To comfort the hearts of the mourning ones, 

With words of peace and love ; 
For he who fought 'neath the flag of the cross, 

Has only gone on before, 
And waits for them by the beautiful gates, 

The gates of the shining shore." 

The following lines are from Rev. Nathaniel Richardson : 

I sincerely thank you for your letter, informing me that our good brother 
Fenn was released from all his infirmities and sufferings, and gone to his 
eternal home. 

Once I might have used the word sorry, but I feel that that word would be 
out of place, in speaking of the great and glorious change, which has come to 
our beloved brother in Christ. He is where sorrow is unknown. May the 
Holy Spirit prepare us to follow him. 

" We shall meet beyond the river." 

I pray God to sanctify the dispensation to all his family and friends, and to 
the church, of which he was a loved and loving member. 

Thus writes Rev. H. B. Mead, of Stonington : 

It was often my delight, to visit the dear old man, and take in the inspiration 
of his sweet submission, and eager expectation concerning the life of the world 
to come. With nothing but pain and weakness in his body, his spirit was ever 
gay, in thought of the delights that seemed so sure and near. He dwelt so 
long on the border of the grave, that all terror was lost, and the highest spiritual 
hope was so kindled in him, that it was a delight to converse with him. His 
whispered words often seemed to come from beyond the grave, and spread sun- 
shine all around. I always received much more than I could carry to him, of 
comfort and hope. He was an invalid, all the time of my ministry in Terry ville. 
I can remember only one or two Sundays, when he was able to attend church ; 



97 

but he did not need to attend ; he always had one wherever he was. The wit- 
ness of the Spirit always seemed to be present. I felt like having attended a 
revival meeting, after visiting him, and I am confident that his prayers have sent 
many a blessing down upon his pastor and people. From his watch-tower on 
the hill, he looked out over the homes of that people, and especially to the old 
church which he loved so dearly, and his heart was always filled with some 
prayer of sympathy, or earnest longing for divine blessing. No words can tell 
a pastor's comfort and strong help, in one such man. 

The last extract is from a letter of Rev. J. W. Backus, of 
Plainville : 

I love and honor the late Mr. Elam Fenn most sincerely. I wish I could 
suitably express the obligation I feel to him ; and the high sense I have, of his 
deep, intelligent piety ; as also of his charming, sunny companionship. The 
hours I have spent with him, in talking up the " olden time," have discovered 
to me his vigorous and exact memory ; the enthusiasm of a young man — though 
past the age of four score years — as he has detailed to me, in a husky whisper, 
the scenes and events in old " Northbury." 

Only a very rich character could have impressed me so forcibly, in the inter- 
course of a few hours, as his has done. 



13 



